The Weight of Water
by virgo79
Summary: Regret is heavy. Bill Turner, with nothing left to lose. Or so he thinks, but he's been out of touch for a while. Bottom of the ocean and all. (Post-movie)
1. Default Chapter

Okay. Good morning, and welcome to Overactive Imagination Theatre. Anyone and anything you recognize from PotC does not belong to me, is borrowed (borrowed without permission), and is used and abused here purely for twisted recreational purposes. Please don't curse me.

Tiny acknowledgements – I had to run with the lovely and talented Mr. Depp's idea on Barbossa's first name, because it's a funny idea, and it rolls nicely off the tongue. (Especially if you say "Ek-torr", and kinda trill it evilly...anyway, getting off topic.)

Thanks to Abbie, Rick, and Burt for being my guinea pigs on this one.

Rated R for naughty language and violence. Don't come back later whining that I didn't warn you.

Any and all feedback is appreciated.

THE WEIGHT OF WATER 

PROLOGUE

It's said the deepest circle of hell is reserved for betrayers and mutineers.

They had the deep part right. But despite what the preachers might say about it, it was not full of fire and brimstone and screaming demons.

Hell was water, heavy and unending and black. And while screaming might have been a welcome break from the crushing silence, the only demons Bill Turner had encountered were the ones that whispered and laughed inside his own head.

They were enough.

He'd wished them gone for a time, but then came to realize those voices were the only company he had. So he abided them. Encouraged them. Gave them their own bloody stage to dance and sing on in his mind.

There didn't tend to be much variety to the play they put on. More often than not, it was the night of the mutiny on the _Pearl_. Bill worried at that particular wound eagerly, savagely. When the demons conjured up Jack's face, pained more by betrayal than by the bruises that covered it, Bill embraced the memories almost wantonly. When Hector Barbossa sneered at him from across time and recollection, escorting their stumbling, snarling, swearing young captain to the plank by his hair, Bill gave the scene the most reverent, rapt attention he could.

Entombed in water, memory was the only lash available for him to scourge himself with. And like a true penitent, he welcomed every blow.

Like the backhanded one that had sent Jack over the rails after he'd spit a mouthful of blood right into Barbossa's smug face. At the time, watching it, Bill had cried out, the sound lost in the cruel laughter of the rest of the crew. Now, Bill hoarded the memory of the slight body tumbling backwards over the side of the ship like any pirate hoarded something of value.

It had been his defining moment, after all. It was only right he preserve the memory and carry it forever. Bill Turner had stood at the crossroads, doing nothing but trembling with impotent rage as his dearest friend was betrayed and left to die.

"_Please, Bill. Don't do anything stupid."_

He did, of course. Or at least Jack would have called it stupid, sending that gold far beyond Barbossa's reach, then proclaiming it. But Bill had gotten what he wanted out of it. He'd seen the realization chill Barbossa like hoarfrost when he grasped his fate, had the satisfaction of looking into the bastard's eyes and seeing the same anguish he'd seen in Jack's when the _Pearl_ was taken from him.

"_You don't get it yet, do you? We're not just cursed, Hector,"_ he'd said, almost purring, as Bo'sun bound his hands, _"we're damned."_

Even now, Bill wondered, if the mutiny hadn't happened, if they hadn't betrayed Jack, would they still have been stripped of flesh and feeling? Exactly which god's wrath were they suffering, and for which sin?

Insignificant distinctions, now. The punishment had been handed down, and Bill had seen to it there would be no pardon for any of them. It was the only kind of justice he could offer Jack, and he hoped the lad rested peacefully for it.

So he nurtured the horrible memories of the crime that had landed him here, in this wet, blind, deaf hell. He was paying out a debt, and those echoes were part of it.

There were other memories, though, that he refused to indulge. That he tried to shove down and hold beneath the surface until they just stopped kicking. Inevitably, though, they also made their way to the front of his mind.

Lying beside Cathleen when she'd been heavy with child. She'd had her arms tucked beneath her dark head, chewing on a bit of straw, gazing up at the stars. She'd turned to look at him, and winked.

"S'gonna be a son, y'know, Billy," "Is that so, Catie-girl?" 

"_Aye."_

Tossing Will into the air on his second birthday, making the child shriek with laughter. Teaching his son to swim when he was three. To sit astride a horse when he was three and a half.

"Watch me, Papa!" 

Kissing Will's skinned knee, tying a handkerchief around it and making it better by tickling the boy's ribs 'til tears turned to giggles.

Sitting at an eighteen-year-old Jack's bedside, braiding the first beads into Jack's long hair as he lied half-conscious, seal-dark eyes glazed with exhaustion and pain after Bill had dug a musket ball out of his chest.

"_See?"_ he'd said when he was done, taking his small shaving mirror from the bedside table and holding it so Jack could look at himself without lifting his head from the pillow. _"Just like the warriors up on the North continent do, to make themselves look wild and fierce."_

Jack had lifted one hand to grasp the braid, turning it so the beads caught the light, and he'd grinned wanly. _"I like it."_

Starting Will on the sword when he was four. _"Fine form, lad, fine form! I shouldn't want to tangle with you in a few years' time!"_ He'd beamed down proudly at the boy, and laid a hand on his shoulder...

...as he'd laid a hand on Jack's when he was almost twenty, braced against a wall in a Tortuga alleyway, puking his throat raw after the first time a man had died on his cutlass.

"_It was a clean kill, Jack. If it's to be done, that's the way. Remember that."_

"_Right. Thanks. Piss off."_ He'd spit twice on the cobblestones, straightened, and given himself a little shake, like a cat that had gotten wet. _"I need me a drink, mate."_

"You're far too fond of dipping in the drink, Jack!" 

Floating lazily on his back in the blue-green water, his never-still arms skimming serpentine out at his sides, Jack had cracked open one eye and grinned at Bill. _"Which drink are we talkin' about, mate?"_

"_The one you're soaking in. I've never seen a sailor who spent so much willing time in the water. It isn't natural."_

"_No, nothing natural about a seaman who can swim,"_ Jack had returned in that dead-serious tone that let Bill know he was being laughed at.

But then Jack had laughed at a great deal of what Bill had to say. He wondered if Jack had laughed when Barbossa lashed Bill to a cannon and sent him to this deep, black, wet hell.

Or if he'd laughed when Bill's bonds were finally eaten away by time and the sea, unbeknownst to Bill, who'd been blind and floating for so long he never noticed the lack of resistance on his legs, never noticed the currents were pushing him away from his gravesite, never knew the difference until he blinked for what might have been the first time in years and found himself washed up like flotsam on a stretch of sand.

Bill could not say how long he'd been seeing the sun for, and thought it a dream. He could have been lying on that beach for an hour or a month before he blinked, heard the sound of waves, raised sand-coated hands in front of his face, and understood he wasn't at the bottom of the sea anymore.

He supposed he should have felt a bit more strongly about regaining his freedom than he did, but beyond the initial disconcerted surprise – a bit like waking up badly hung over, really – Bill found it meant very little to him one way or the other. His best friend was still dead. His son and wife still lost to him. He was a walking corpse.

Bill Turner was still in hell. Hell had just shifted latitude.

But, he decided, standing up and brushing off some of the sand, more for the novelty of being able to do so than out of any interest in his own comfort or appearance, he could endure it. Not that he had much choice, either way, of course, but there was one thing that eased his torment, if only a little.

Somewhere out there, Barbossa and his crew were suffering the same fate. A pinch of sugar to a mountain of lemons, but there it was.

Bill had failed Jack Sparrow, but he'd fucked Hector Barbossa a good one.

That knowledge sustained him throughout the months to come, when he learned he'd lost seven years under the water. When he began to move among people again, watching them live and eat and change and care, unable to do any of those things himself. It was his only comfort when he saw small, smiling, bright-eyed boys that put him in mind of Will, the son he'd left back in England and could never return to. Not now. Not when he was _this_.

He would rather his wife and son believe him dead than to ever know what he'd become.

So for three years, the ghost that had once been a man called Bootstrap Bill Turner existed, cursed or damned or whatever God and the world chose to call him, and found his sole comfort in the knowledge that as long as his flesh turned to bone in the moonlight, justice was being served.

And then came the night when Bill, leaning against the doorframe of a tavern filled with laughing voices, took a swig of rum and nearly choked when he tasted it. Sputtering, Bill stared in mute shock at the bottle in his hands. He drank again. Again, the biting sweetness filled his mouth and throat.

He could taste.

"No," he whispered.

He sucked in a breath, and smelled salt air. Sweat. Smoke. His hand clenched convulsively around the bottle he held.

"No!" he growled.

Shaking, Bill stepped out of the tavern. Walked into the dirt road. Into the moonlight.

His flesh gleamed in the blue-white light, whole and human and unbroken. He was alive.

And if he was alive, it meant the gold had been found. It meant Will had been found. Barbossa had found the quarry he'd been hunting for ten years. He had Will's blood. Will was dead.

His son was dead.

His boys were both dead. Murdered. Taken.

Feeling flooded back into Bill Turner for the first time in years, and it was a white wave of rage, boiling his blood in his veins.

He screamed, and hurled the bottle down to shatter into a thousand fragments, sending the passers by nearest him running to escape. A water barrel and then a window fell victim to his wrath. No one moved to intercede. They gave the howling madman a wide berth.

His legs were moving, pumping, carrying him away from the frightened, gaping onlookers, away from the light and noise and civilization of the village, towards the darkness. Without conscious thought, he ran to the tiny, pathetic dock the island claimed. He ran to the end of the longest pier and fell to his knees, screaming so hard it seemed something in his throat would break.

The tears came when he had no voice left. He wrapped his arms around himself and doubled over, forehead pressed to the rough wood planks beneath him.

Bill Turner wept, adding his own salt to the dark waters of the Caribbean.

TBC


	2. chapter one

(see intro for disclaimers)

......................................

Ethan Dreyfus, proprietor of the Faithful Bride, stood behind his bar, drying glasses with a questionable looking towel and looking over the Thursday night crowd with suspicion tempered by disinterest. Business was slow tonight, and the patrons seemed, for once, more interested in drinking than fighting or whoring. Most of the girls who operated out of the upstairs rooms were milling about looking bored, engaged in snippets of conversation amongst themselves, all attempts at drumming up business rebuked. The night was cool, if humid, the day having seen more rain than was common.

A pall of uneasy lethargy seemed to have settled over Tortuga this night, as if something had everyone collectively keeping their heads down. It was the last night of the new moon, and the darkness outside seemed thicker, the torchlight weak, confined within small, damp halos that didn't even try to penetrate the gloom. When the low din in the tavern dipped even lower, the muffled growling of thunder could occasionally be heard, but distantly, as if the storm were circling the island, but had not yet made up its mind to strike.

Dreyfus shook himself out of that thought, almost laughing at himself. He was beginning to sound as superstitious as his old friend Joshamee Gibbs. Gibbs would have said a night like this was for the devil, and decent folk who knew what was good for them would stay indoors with a warm fire and a strong drink. Then he would have given that drink five others to keep it company.

Briefly, Dreyfus wondered what had become of Gibbs, who'd not been seen in Tortuga for almost three months now. He didn't lend much energy to wondering, though. People often went missing in Tortuga. Either they washed up again eventually, or they didn't.

"This is for the bloody birds, old man."

Giselle took a seat on one of the bar stools, and Dreyfus poured the yellow-haired woman a drink. "No takers tonight, eh?"

She snorted. "I'd stand a better chance with the missionaries than this lot. Everybody's keeping their own company tonight. Ain't like this town, Dreyfus."

"Mebbe it's the weather. S'got spirits as damp as the streets."

"Sure is makin' things dry for me," Giselle complained. She tossed her drink back and thumped the glass down on the bar. "Ah, the hell with this. Might as well catch me a few hours' shuteye, since that bed ain't gonna be gettin' used for nothin' else tonight."

"Better hunting tomorrow, lass," Dreyfus called wryly after her as she headed upstairs.

Midnight gave way to the wee hours of morning, and the Bride's patrons dissembled, drifting reluctantly out to the street, up to their boarded rooms, or, in the case of a few, nodding off right at their tables. Dreyfus left them where they were; it wasn't worth the energy it took to drag them to the street. Not to mention that it could be hazardous to a man's health to startle most of Tortuga's drunks awake. He much preferred the idea of them drooling on the tables to him bleeding on the floor.

"Martin!" Dreyfus barked, gaining the attention of the lanky teenage boy relighting some of the candles in the main room. "This place is deader than the grave, lad. I'm off to bed. Serve them that comes in and leave the sleepin' dogs lie. I'll be back after dawn."

"I beg your pardon, sir," The voice was rough and quiet, scraping through the air like a blade being pulled from a sheath, and it drew Ethan Dreyfus up short. "But I wonder if I might detain you from your retirement for a few moments."

Dreyfus gave the man standing just inside the door a brief once-over. He was strikingly tall, dressed in clothing that was neither shoddy nor particularly fine, long hair bound back at the base of his neck.

"If you're wanting to drink, the lad will tend to you, as long as you want to stay," Dreyfus informed the newcomer.

"I'm not here to drink."

Dreyfus allowed himself a small frown, slightly annoyed. "Then seems to me you're wastin' my time," he said gruffly. "It's been a long night, good man, and mostly an unprofitable one, so if you'll excuse me--"

"I said I wasn't here to drink," the tall man said, taking a few steps closer, and as he walked, Dreyfus noticed for the first time the cutlass hanging at his hip. "But I by no means intend to waste your time. In fact I think you'll find your night is about to become extremely profitable."

The man tossed a bit of cloth knotted into a makeshift pouch on the table nearest him, where it landed with a weighty and metallic clink that did wonders for clearing the fog of weariness from Dreyfus' mind.

"Martin. Take a walk."

When the boy had gone, Dreyfus pulled out a chair and sat, gesturing for the tall man to do the same. "What is it I can help you with, friend?"

"You can tell me the last known whereabouts of the _Black Pearl_."

Dreyfus was silent for a bit longer than he intended, mainly because his tongue had gone dry in his mouth.

"And before you say that there's no such vessel, you should know two things. Firstly that there is a large tea stain on the floor of the captain's cabin of the _Black Pearl_, just inside the door, put there at breakfast time during a particularly rough storm about eleven years ago, and secondly that I am a man who probably dislikes having his time wasted even more than you do." The tall man smiled, showing rather more teeth than Dreyfus thought necessary.

"I've seen the ship, sir," Dreyfus said cautiously. "I know she's real. But it's been years since she's docked in Tortuga."

"I don't care when she docked here last," the stranger said, a touch more of a growl in his tone than before. "I want to know where she was last seen in these waters and when. All news of that sort washes up on this stinking rock sooner or later. It's a simple matter of asking the right people, in the right way." The tall man leaned back in his chair and leveled an opaque gaze at Dreyfus. "What will be the right way with you, Mr. Dreyfus?"

Christ, he should have turned in an hour ago. When the whores in the Faithful Bride weren't getting so much as a pinch on the rump, it was a bad omen. Maybe old Gibbs had known his shit after all.

"Last I heard of the _Black Pearl_ was an attack on Port Royal, around three months ago. About a dozen people killed." Dreyfus offered.

"They got off easy, then," the tall man said, somewhat distantly. "Three months...and nothing since then?"

"There was a...a fight, a few days, maybe a week later. On the open water."

"A fight with whom?"

"The _Dauntless_." When the man was clearly waiting for him to elaborate, Dreyfus hurried on, a touch incredulous. "The British dreadnaught? Surely you must know of her, mate. She's a bloody monstrosity. She's killed more pirates than gangrene. The _Dauntless_ has been the lone terror of every man who sails under the Roger for nigh unto ten years now."

"Really?" the tall man said with mild interest. "Perhaps she's about due some competition for that mantle."

That left Dreyfus with jaws slightly agape, but the stranger was already continuing.

"So tell me, how many pirates did this terrible _Dauntless_ slay in the fight with the _Pearl?_"

"Can't say. Way I hear it, both ships sailed away, but the _Dauntless_ went home with a bellyful of the _Black Pearl's_ crewmen."

A dark eyebrow arched up. "Home?"

Dreyfus licked his lips nervously. "Yeah. Port Royal. Took 'em back to hang, though I've heard tell that there's some left, even now."

The tall man leaned forward in his chair, pressing both hands to the table, hard, his gaze suddenly seeming more sharply focused. "Alive?"

Dreyfus licked his lips, and wondered what he was setting in motion this night. But the tall man was waiting, dark eyes fixed as if to strip Dreyfus' flesh away and pull forth the knowledge he sought like meat from the bone, so it didn't do to wonder very long.

Dreyfus nodded. "Aye."

"Alive," the man repeated, more quietly, his eyes shifting to stare off somewhere...else. For what seemed like the longest time, he sat still as stone, while Dreyfus tried not to fidget. So still was he that Dreyfus jumped, jerking back with a start when the man rose up, cat-quick, from his chair.

The tall man pushed the money he'd thrown on the table closer to Dreyfus. "I thank you for your time. This should more than compensate you for time lost here that could have been spent sleeping." An odd expression came over the tall man's face at that, something that dimmed the frightening spark in his eyes, leaving him looking older. "Though if I might offer my personal thoughts on the matter, one shouldn't lend excess hours of one's life to slumber. The world has the nastiest habit of carrying on without you. God only knows what you'll find when you open your eyes again, if you leave them closed too long."

The man touched the brim of his hat in a gesture of farewell, or thanks, and turned to take his leave. For reasons he'd never fully be able to explain, Dreyfus jumped suddenly to his feet and called to halt the stranger, who only half turned.

"It ain't none of my business, mate," Dreyfus said, "but I...I have to know_." I have to know what I was made part of. If I'm throwing someone to the wolves._ "What is it you want with the _Black Pearl_? If there's any truth to what the tales say...well, there ain't nothin' waitin' for you there but death, sir."

The man's profile twitched into a specter of a smile. "You don't know how right you are, Mr. Dreyfus. As for what I want...the _Pear_l has robbed many a soul of life and limb. I'm just one more who lost something to her."

"Forgive me for sayin' so, sir, but if that's the case, this is a fool's errand you run. No one reclaims what the _Black Pearl_ has stolen from them."

The tall man turned more then, looking him squarely in the eye, and Ethan Dreyfus shrank from the hollowness, the void of empty hatred he stared into. Being tight-lipped had threatened to get him killed only minutes earlier, but he feared saying too much was about to bring him to an even more abrupt end. "Pour them their drinks and shut the fuck up" had, until now, worked quite well as a personal philosophy for Dreyfus, and he mentally kicked himself in the ass for not heeding it for another five bloody minutes.

"You know something, Mr. Dreyfus? I believe you're correct," the tall man said, in a tone so low it was difficult to discern over the thunder, which had gotten closer, and louder. "It's none of your business."

Dreyfus didn't regain the ability to swallow until after the tall man had disappeared through the doorway, and the rain begun to hammer in heavy drops on the roof.

.........................................................................................

****

"No."

"Yes."

"_No_."

"Yes."

"Jack, no!"

"Yes. And in case we were unclear on this, yes."

Anamaria D'martinique, first mate of the _Black Pearl_, crossed her arms over her chest, fingers flexing in and out of fists, and silently repeated her daily meditation that it really was possible to have a complete conversation with Jack Sparrow without slapping, punching, or throttling him. There was no need to resort to violence when logic would suffice. Anamaria's was not, of course, a particularly diplomatic sort of logic. She preferred unvarnished facts. "This is above and beyond even your normal level of idiocy, do you realize that?"

"Yes."

The fact that Jack's head and shoulders were obscured by the large trunk he was rummaging through, leaving her talking more or less to his backside, annoyed Anamaria a bit, though in truth it would probably be easier to curb the urge to knock him in the teeth if she wasn't actually looking at his face.

"This is...it's..." she sputtered, hunting for a suitable condemnation.

"Insane?" Jack offered helpfully, leaning to look at her around the lid of the trunk.

"Yes!"

He grinned, a dimpled flash of white and gold. Most people skirted around that word and its variants when Jack was involved, which he often found amusing, but could, on occasion, be irritating. Anamaria, however, was not most people, and firmly believed in calling a spade a spade. Or a madman mad, as the case may be.

"Jack, get your nose out of that damned trunk and talk to me."

"I need to find my boots. Hold that." He flung something that might at one point in its existence have been described as clothing towards his first mate. Ana snatched it out of the air and dropped it on the floor.

"You're wearing your boots, Captain." This was said with a surprising amount of patience; one never wanted to assume that Jack Sparrow's state of awareness was sharing living space with one's own.

"My dress boots."

He probably intended it as a clarification, but the concept of Jack owning formalwear of any type didn't quite fit into Anamaria's brain, no matter which way she twisted or wiggled it. "When did you have dress boots?" she asked, momentarily swayed from the topic of their argument.

"Ten years ago. Left 'em in this very cabin."

"And it didn't occur to you that Barbossa would have thrown them out with the rest of your belongings?"

Jack sat back on his heels, gaping at her in such a way that it was clear it _hadn't_, in fact, occurred to him. "That bloody bastard threw away my good boots?"

"He turned your crew on you, stole your ship, and left you to die, so I'd guess he'd probably be responsible for the boots, too, Captain."

Jack made an incredulous noise in his throat and slammed the lid down. "That piss-blooded, treacherous undead son of a whore," he spat, flopping down heavily to sit on the trunk. He crossed his arms, unintentionally mirroring Anamaria, and stared at his feet, pouting. "I can't wear these to Will and Lizzie's party," he said, dismayed.

She should have windburn considering the speed at which the conversation had gone from preposterous to infuriating to surreal. Anamaria strode over to stand in front of him. "Jack. Captain. You can't do this. You can't sail the most infamous pirate ship in the Caribbean into the harbor of the town you were almost hung in and go strolling into the engagement party of the governor's daughter."

"Well, not in these boots I can't, no. Do you _know_ what that spot on the left one is?"

She checked herself in mid-lunge, fingers curling on the air, drawing the slightest flinch and worried frown from Jack. She drew a deep breath and forced her arms down to her sides.

"You're not going. Never minding the little fact that it's suicidal, you have a ship to run and a crew to see to."

"Ah, but that's the beautiful part, Anamaria," Jack said, irate pout giving way to a gentle and thoroughly infuriating half-smile. "My ship is in fine order, my crew well schooled in the maintaining of it, and best of all, everything will be in the safekeeping of my supremely capable first mate, whom I have naught but the utmost confidence in."

Anamaria opened her mouth, wagged a finger at him, and found herself backed into a corner. Jack, for his part, said nothing more, but cocked his head to the side and let that smile grow a little wider.

Ana's lips pursed as if she'd gotten a mouthful of lemon. "You're a maddening bloody bastard is what you are," she growled, poking Jack viciously in the shoulder, before turning on her heel to storm out of the cabin. She felt her anger at losing the argument being upset by stirrings of something that felt suspiciously like elation at Jack's praise, and damned if she was going to show the mad idiot how touched she was when he was determined to ignore any sense she tried to show him regarding this stunt of his.

"All right, listen up, all of you!" she shouted across the deck in a tone that never failed to bring even the most grizzled sailor among them scrambling to her summons. If the crew of the _Black Pearl_ followed their captain out of a kind of mystified loyalty, respecting his methods as well as being too intrigued to see what he'd do or say next to leave his company, then they leaped to the orders of the first mate like they feared the stony wrath of Medusa for stepping too slowly. Hands on her hips, Anamaria let the tiniest of sighs escape her. "Our captain has some business to attend to ashore."

****

........................................................................

Listening to Anamaria weave her story for the crew, Jack reflected, not for the first time, that it might not be completely on the up and up to conceal the real reason he was going, but one mutiny and ten years of relying solely on oneself, honing paranoia to a razor-edge, weren't exactly conducive to openness. It had been tempting to simply slip away for a few days, leaving nothing more than a note with a date and a location to meet him again, but the more he'd toyed with that idea, the less he'd liked it, and not just because he feared the thrashing he'd get from Anamaria once he was back on board. Jack knew in his heart he could trust this crew, enough to leave his beloved ship in their hands.

Granted, there had been that business right after the fight at la Muerta, but even then, when they'd left without him, they had _technically_ been following his orders. And the fact that they'd returned for him at all... no, Jack had no misgivings about how this crew measured up against his old one.

_Weren't even mine, though_, he mused, also not for the first time. They'd been Barbossa's creatures, down to the last man. It had been Barbossa they followed, taking their cues from him as he bided his time, shadowing Jack like a circling shark_. And I was bloody naïve enough – bloody _stupid_ enough – to think I was being obeyed when I was being used._

He'd been cocksure, and he'd been trusting, and the combination had swum right up and bit him in the ass. Just as Bill had warned him it would.

_Oh, Bill._

That was the bit of it that still dropped Jack's heart into his stomach. When he was standing at the _Pearl_'s helm, the wind and the waves washed away all the sting of the betrayal he himself had suffered. He had his ship back, and there was no point in dwelling on the years he'd been without her. They'd lasted long enough in their time, and that time was over now. Jack was more than content to leave it behind.

But Bill had lost a great deal more, and no matter how much better the days were now, not one of them went by that Jack didn't remind himself of that.

Bill hadn't even wanted to be a part of the venture to la Muerta. He'd listened, patiently and without laughter or criticism, when Jack had laid out his plans, and then, to the dumbfounded shock of his young friend, had gently explained that he wasn't going to take part in any of it. He had a family to feed, back in England, and chasing Aztec fairy tales wasn't going to get it done.

Jack had been hurt, more deeply than his pride had been willing to let even his dear friend Bill Turner see, but he'd concealed it. Or he'd tried to. Bill had probably known. He'd always known everything else going on behind Jack's eyes.

"_I'm sorry, Jack,"_ he'd said quietly, reaching out to lay a hand on Jack's shoulder. _"But I can't justify it. I've got responsibilities. I can't abandon them to go running off on some wild goose chase with no payoff."_

It had been a perfectly sensible argument, something Jack had little use for to this very day. At twenty-two he'd had even less, and Bill's reasoning had somehow translated into a lack of faith in Jack's abilities, and even worse (though he'd have waded through moray eels before admitting it) a declaration that Jack just didn't _matter_ that much. Less than the family Bill had left, at any rate, though even through hurt feelings and insulted pride, Jack had known that was irrational and untrue, and had, thank God, never given voice to it. It shamed him now to even recall _thinking_ such a thing, and there was precious little in the world capable of shaming Jack Sparrow.

"_Whatever pleases you, William_," Jack had said curtly, those many years ago, and had shrugged Bill's hand roughly from his shoulder. "_I'm quite sure I can manage to scrape by without you."_

That had been that, both their minds made up, dead set that each was on the right path. And then Bill had learned whom Jack had found to serve as first mate in his place, and all bets had been off.

_You knew what he was, Bill. You knew and you tried to warn me, and I wasn't going to hear any of it._

And when he hadn't been able to talk Jack out of hiring Hector Barbossa and the dregs of humanity who came with him, Bill Turner had changed his mind about going along.

"_He's a monster, Jack. And if you think I'm letting you go traipsing off to the edge of the world with that venomous, murdering son of a bitch at your back, you truly are daft."_

That had flown like a dead duck. Jack had railed at Bill, swore and snapped and told him in no uncertain terms that Captain Jack Sparrow didn't need anyone nursemaiding him.

But in the end, he hadn't denied Bill passage. Bill had been on the Black Pearl when the crew mutinied, because he didn't trust Barbossa, and he feared for Jack. It was, more often than not, the last thought that drifted through Jack's mind before sleep was allowed in.

"You had to be right about it, Bill, damn you anyway," Jack sighed aloud, softly. "Always had to bloody be right. Used to piss me off something terrible. And it didn't save either of us that time. You should have stayed the hell out of it, like you wanted to in the first place. Or at least had the sense to keep your bleedin' big mouth shut after they pitched me overboard."

"_Please, Bill. Don't do anything stupid." _They were the last words Jack had ever spoken to his friend. And what did the bloody jackass do at the first turn? Went and got himself killed, for justice and honor and all such shit.

_Well, not exactly killed_, Jack reminded himself, only to immediately sever the thought at its root. It might well be cowardly, but he was blatantly unwilling to let his imagination have any sort of room to maneuver where...._that_ was concerned. Those sorts of thoughts would drive a man mad more surely than three days without water in the Caribbean sun. He wouldn't, couldn't think of Bill like _that_. Down _there_.

Jack was then spared, for the moment, at least, further thoughts of that nature by the fortuitous arrival of his quartermaster. "Well, Ana's set to be a regular little ray of sunshine today," Joshamee Gibbs observed with a chuckle as he entered Jack's cabin. "Working your charm again, I see."

"What can I say, Gibbs? It's _my_ curse, and there's no lifting it, unfortunately," Jack said, one hand tossed out in a sweeping gesture, inclining his head in a little bow. The grey-haired pirate snorted in response.

"Can't be all bad, considering it must come with the ability to deflect lightning," Gibbs retorted good-naturedly. "Or is it that you throw just enough truth in with the bullshit to avoid being blown to ash in your boots?"

"Speaking of boots, did you know Barbossa threw me good ones out?"

"The dog!" Gibbs gasped in exaggerated horror. "Maybe someone will raise him from the dead and you can kill him again."

Jack shuddered, giving his quartermaster a reproachful look. "That's so bloody far from anything even _resembling_ funny, Gibbs."

"Sorry, Cap'n," Gibbs glanced around at the scattered piles of Jack's possessions. "Still goin' through with this, then?"

"I am, and if you're here to give me the second verse of the lecture, I shall put to you a more productive use of your time and offer you a drink." Jack replied, reopening the trunk and tossing a few things haphazardly back in. He wasn't surprised when Gibbs declined the offer; the man drank less and less these days. Gibbs made a more sober pirate than he'd ever made a naval man.

"You'll hear no sermon from me. I've known you longer than she has, Cap'n. No sense spitting into a gale, is there? Besides," Gibbs continued after a moment's hesitation, his blue eyes twinkling, "I would see my captain smile again, and if this is what it takes, then God speed."

Jack straightened, one dark eyebrow arching. "What are you on about, Gibbs?"

Gibbs crossed his arms, trying not to grin so large that Jack would think he was being made fun of. "You've had a face on you like the front edge of a hurricane these past couple of weeks, Captain Sparrow, ever since we got wind of the _Man o' War_ striking near Port Royal. The news about Miss Elizabeth and young William brought the first sign of sun I'd seen from you in some while. You're on pins and needles to see them again, and don't you go denying it."

Jack casually kicked the side of the trunk, and the lid fell shut again. "You're being absurd. And over sentimental. It's unbecoming. I'm going because I savor the idea of appearing in the lion's den, right under the lion's powdered, incompetent nose. If I have time to lift a glass, or better yet a bottle, to the lovebirds, so be it."

Gibbs rocked back and forth on his heels, thoroughly enjoying himself. "With all due respect, Cap'n, you can go blow that smoke up someone else's ass."

"We've not had a crumb of excitement on this vessel in _ages_, Gibbs. I'm not going to sit about getting complacent and lazy, even it means I have to go hunt up some hell to raise."

"You know how many cannonballs we put into the _Man o' War_ when we come up on 'er, Jack? Five. And she was _docked_, Jack. Captain Montero pissed himself twice before you took your gun out of his teeth long enough for 'im to tell you they hadn't even sailed within sight of Port Royal."

"But I rather think he wasn't lying to us, don't you?" Jack said, the corner of his mouth twitching up. "Not too many people who manage to deceive and evade effectively when they're wetting themselves."

"Oh, no doubt, no doubt!" Gibbs ceded, laughing heartily. "And I reckon the message to steer clear of Port Royal made it almost to the Atlantic before his trousers dried, Cap'n."

"Well then those were five cannonballs put to good use, weren't they?" Jack's tone was light, but Gibbs caught the look in his eye. It was a more subdued version of the one that had come upon the pirate captain when he'd first heard murmurings about an attack on Port Royal by Paolo Montero's ship. The rumor had been false, which was fortunate for Montero and his men. He wouldn't have gotten off as lightly as a pair of soiled trousers if William Turner and Elizabeth Swann's town had truly been his target.

Well, all right, a pair of soiled trousers, a pistol up his nose, five cannonballs in his hull, and a looted cargo hold, but Montero had still been one fucking lucky dog, because Gibbs had watched Jack go five shades of pale and his warm brown eyes go black when he thought Port Royal had been harmed. And for all the lengths Jack would go to avoiding bloodshed when he wasn't absolutely forced to it, Gibbs certainly wouldn't have wanted to be the one counting on that particular aversion as a sole saving grace when the _Black Pearl_'s captain was on the warpath. Gibbs knew for a fact that the number of lives Jack had personally taken could be tallied well before a man ran out of fingers, and not one of them had ever been in anger, or with any kind of pleasure. Not even Barbossa, in the end. Whatever else it had made of him, life had never given Jack Sparrow a taste for cruelty or cold-bloodedness, and Gibbs suspected it never would, but it never did to assume you knew the worst someone was capable of.

"Make people believe you're willing to do worse than you actually are, and chances are better you won't have to go even as far as you _are_ willing to go, which'll get you where you need to be a lot quicker and cleaner than if they don't believe you're willing to do even as much as you really are," Jack had once said of his methods, and Gibbs, after resisting the urge to go a bit cross-eyed (as he could sometimes feel the need to do while absorbing Jack-logic), had seen the merits of that approach.

Gibbs gave Jack a long, searching look now. "Tell me straight, Jack. Would you really have done Montero in, if it had been Port Royal?"

Jack, sitting cross-legged in the middle of the floor with a chart across his lap, took his time before raising his eyes to Gibbs. "Really?" he echoed. "Really, Gibbs, I don't know. It wasn't Port Royal, and that's all that _really_ matters. What if's don't make the sun rise or the wind blow. And the dead aren't brought back by dishing out more death." Jack's eyes drifted away at that, and he drew one knee up so he could rest his chin on it, hands wrapped around his shin, going quiet and looking so young and sad that Gibbs averted his gaze after a moment, feeling like he was trespassing on something private. Then Jack tilted his head so that it was his cheek on his knee, and waited until he had Gibbs' eye again. "I don't know what I would have done, Gibbs. Maybe nothing. Maybe something I wouldn't have been able to sleep for doing." He grinned then, and straightened up, and as quickly as it had come, the sorrow lifted from his face. "What I'm going to do now is pay a visit to two young fools about to fasten the shackle, God help them both."

"I believe that's 'tie the knot', Cap'n," Gibbs corrected.

"Either way it's bloody bondage, isn't it?" Jack retorted, leaving Gibbs once more roaring with laughter.

TBC


	3. chapter two

Still don't own 'em. Still R-rated. Mild naughtiness in this part.

Thanks again to my reviewers for reviewing. Please feel free to make a dirty little habit of it.

**....................................................**

Elizabeth Swann was certain there was no sound in the world as unpleasant as that of the curtain rings scraping obnoxiously along their rod when the heavy drapes of her bedroom were flung back by an overzealous hand.

"Good morning, miss! Simply _splendid _day out, it is!"

_All right, there's _one_ as unpleasant_, she conceded, then mentally smacked herself for being unkind. Estrella's honey-sweet chirping was a bit much first thing in the morning, but at least it came with genuine friendliness. Had it been put on, Elizabeth would long ago have thrown her bedside lamp at the girl's head. Though _how_ anyone could be so bloody happy and energetic as this hour was an enigma.

Raising a hand to block the sun that now assaulted her where she lied, Elizabeth squinted around the room and located the scurrying form of her handmaiden. The girl made her way back to Elizabeth's bed and the tea tray she'd set on the nightstand. "What time is it, Estrella?" she asked, voice still feathery with sleep.

"It's just past nine, miss."

_Ah. Not so much first thing in the morning, then._ That went a little way to excusing the cheerfulness.

"I didn't wake you quite so early this morning as usual, what with you bein' out so late last evening, miss." Estrella passed the teacup and saucer to Elizabeth. "How was dinner with your gentleman?"

_Not half so fine as dessert with my gentleman_, she thought, but refrained from smirking. "It was lovely, thank you," Elizabeth mumbled around a yawn. She made an appreciative little noise when she realized the cup held coffee, not tea, and took a long sip.

"Anyway, miss, we'd best get you up and dressed. Don't want to be late for your fitting, do you?"

_Fitting?_

_Fitting. _

_Engagement party._

"Oh, buggering _hell_."

"Miss Swann!"

Oops. She hadn't meant for that bit to be out loud, but poor Estrella looked stricken. (Elizabeth would blame it on time spent in the company of pirates if she could, but if she was perfectly honest, that exposure had merely broadened her vocabulary. She'd been able to cuss with the best of them since she'd been about thirteen. Such were the consequences of growing up in a port town.)

"Pardon me, Estrella. I had forgotten all about that," Elizabeth sighed.

"I can't imagine how!" Estrella gushed. "To think, all of Port Royal coming to pay you and Mister Turner their respects. How many people d'you suppose will be there, miss?"

_About four dozen more than I want to spend an entire night in the company of_. "I'm not sure, Estrella. My father was in charge of the invitations. I really don't know how many to expect_."_

Didn't know, and didn't care. The entire thing was her father's pet project, and Elizabeth wanted no greater involvement in any of it than simply showing up. Truth be told, even that was more than she wanted to do with it, but this was a compromise. Submit to a huge, glittering annoyance of an engagement gala now, satisfying the appetites of Port Royal society, and she and Will would have the small, private wedding they both had their hearts set on.

"Rank makes certain demands of us, Elizabeth," her father had patiently reminded her. "We must make _some_ gesture of inclusion to our peers where your marriage is concerned. It would be tasteless and rude not to."

Elizabeth had a different sort of gesture she was prepared to offer her peers if they didn't piss off and mind their own business, but she gave in. Partially because her father had been giving her that small, apprehensive, "please don't disappoint me" smile of his, but mainly because she was going to marry the man she loved in a month and a half, and the rest was nothing but window dressing to her. She could endure one night of perfumed social torture when a quiet, perfect little wedding and a lifetime beside Will Turner awaited her.

So she and Will had conceded to the engagement party. After which Wetherby Swann had, in a moment of inspiration, decided said party should be a masquerade.

Elizabeth had nothing against this on principle, but this particular masquerade was going to take place in August. In the Caribbean. Dearly as she may love her father, there _were_ areas where his judgment was lacking, and in this instance, he didn't realize his mistake until after he'd had the invitations sent out.

It was Will who'd made a suggestion to Elizabeth that she found nothing short of brilliant, and not just because it spared her throwing herself from the ramparts in protest of trudging about in costume in the Jamaican summer. Will had left it to her to bring the idea before the governor, and Elizabeth had done just that – _after_ speaking to her clothier and her seamstress, to make sure that the word was leaked and spread among the party-goers even if it was met with resistance by Swann himself. Which, of course, it was. But by the time he found out about Elizabeth's suggested theme, the rest of Port Royal had already known long enough to follow suit, and there was no going back.

So it was that after plying herself with plenty of coffee, Elizabeth found herself standing for the final fitting on a one-shouldered, skin-baring construction of brilliant blue and gold silk of the airiest, most breathable order. The macaw mask she'd had made would fasten into her hair with combs, close-fitting only over her forehead and eyes, the impressive, curving black beak set far enough out from the lower half of her face that she wouldn't smother with it on.

Her father's sense of social duty and propriety would be satisfied, she would once again thrill and scandalize Port Royal, and best of all, in a roomful of island girls and native warriors, jewel-hued tropical fish, scantily-clad mermaids, and birds of paradise, no one would care that the governor's daughter was running about without a corset.

"Thank God for you, William Turner," Elizabeth muttered under her breath, smiling and casting one last glance at herself in the mirror before turning to let the seamstress help her out of the gown. With that tedious errand out of the way, Elizabeth was free to devote the rest of the day to something far more enjoyable.

**...............................................................**

"Elizabeth, how many times must I tell you, keep your knees apart. Here, move your foot."

"Like this?"

"Much better. See how much steadier that makes you feel?"

"Mmm, you're right. All right, Will, I'm ready."

"No, you're not. Loosen your grip a bit first. You're squeezing it too hard. You always start off with your grip much too tight."

"I can't help it. Looser doesn't feel right. Feels like I'll lose hold of it as soon as we get going."

"You won't. And trust me, once you're doing this for real, you'll wear yourself out if you try holding on that tight. There you are; that's much better. Good. Now, if you're ready for me, darling..."

Will Turner stepped back from his fiancé, a look that was equal parts adoration and eagerness on his face, and raised his own blade to the one Elizabeth brandished.

"Let's have a go."

Will moved his weapon first, at half-speed and with nowhere near his full strength behind it, leading Elizabeth into the patterns they'd been practicing. He let her get reacquainted with the feel of the blade, waiting until her movements became solid and sure before increasing his speed, just a bit. He never started their drills out at too fast a pace, but he'd hear it from Elizabeth if she thought he was going too easy on her, so he made certain he pushed her a little farther at each lesson. She was a quick study, if not quite a natural, and her progress was impeded more by the sporadic timing of their lessons than by any lack of skill on her behalf. She had a long way yet to go, and at times Elizabeth grew frustrated with herself when she didn't think she was picking up a technique as quickly as she should, but both of them became more confident with each lesson that should the need ever arise, Elizabeth would at least be able to hold her own in a real fight.

Elizabeth, for her part, doubted she'd ever reach anywhere near the level of ability possessed by Will, who was so adept with blades of almost any sort that it had been dubbed downright spooky by some who'd seen him in action. She'd thought she would burst with pride when Will had told her he'd been approached by Commodore Norrington to privately school some of the men in his command who, in Norrington's exact words, "showed the right sort of promise and were worthy of such a teacher." The only downside to the arrangement was that it would leave even less time for Elizabeth's own lessons, but she found that a small enough sacrifice compared to the light that had glowed in Will's eyes when he told her.

"Elizabeth, I wish you could have been there," Will had fairly gushed, eyes almost fever-bright with happiness. "He truly meant it, all of it. He asked me right in front of two other officers!" His glee at this had been so childlike and contagious it had made Elizabeth laugh out loud.

"High time the rest of the world caught up with me figuring out what a bloody brilliant man you are, William Turner," she'd said. "You should be as proud of yourself as I am of you."

The excitement in Will's expression had toned down, become something softer. "There are only two times I've ever been prouder," he'd replied, voice low, and reached out to brush his fingertips down her jaw, take her hand. He'd run his thumb over her knuckles, and over the ring that graced her finger, a band of white gold set with a single black pearl circled by tiny diamonds. Then he'd turned her hand over and kissed the long, thin scar that bisected her palm. Elizabeth had said nothing, knowing beyond words that Will spoke of the day she'd accepted his ring and his promise, and of the time they had stood side by side in defense of the man who carried a scar to match theirs on his hand.

The memory brought a smile to her face now, as she and Will sparred in a back room of the forge, but she also let it distract her enough that Will was able to push through her defenses, locking their sword hilts together and forcing her weapon gently but firmly down, bringing them face-to-face. He clucked his tongue chidingly.

"Careless, my lady," he reprimanded, leaning even closer to brush his lips against her ear and whisper. "Very, very careless."

"Oh dear," Elizabeth breathed, turning to nuzzle her nose against his cheek, where a sweat-damp lock of black hair clung. "I don't suppose you'll show me any mercy?"

"Are you yielding, then, my lady?" Will asked, kissing her earlobe, tongue toying with the dainty gold hoop there.

"I didn't say that," Elizabeth replied, raising the hand not gripping her sword hilt to cup Will's neck beneath his ponytail. "I may resist."

"Really?"

"Really. Haven't made up my mind yet." Her hand slid from his neck down into the collar of his shirt, her nails skimming lightly over the top of his back, between his shoulder blades, finding the spot she knew to be ticklish. Will jumped reflexively, and the movement brought his body closer to hers.

"Don't you know it's dangerous not to cooperate with a pirate?" Will pushed the swords aside, and they dropped to the stone floor, fencing momentarily abandoned. He pressed his hands to Elizabeth's lower back, pulling her more solidly against him.

"So I've heard." She undid the top button on his shirt, and laid a kiss on the skin it exposed.

Will let out a shaky sigh. "You don't seem very frightened."

The next button popped open beneath her fingers. "I've been threatened by pirates before, you know," she murmured against his breastbone. "Never quite so pleasantly, of course."

"I should hope not." Will tugged up the bottom of the ivory linen boy's shirt Elizabeth wore for fencing and slid his fingers beneath the waist of her trousers, searching for the place where the smooth, taut muscles of her back melded into softer, fuller flesh. "This is not improving your swordplay, Elizabeth."

She giggled into his chest. "No, it's really not, is it?" she agreed, pouncing to catch his lips with hers.

"If we don't stop this," Will mumbled between kisses, "we'll have nothing left to look forward to on the honeymoon."

Elizabeth cooed as Will nibbled his way across her throat and collarbone. "You complaining, William?" she demanded breathily, hands moving to his belt buckle now that they'd conquered the last of the buttons.

"God, no."

"That's what I thought."

**................................................................**

The afternoon light had grown heavy and golden as it crept across Will's bedroom floor. He lied on his side, head propped up on one hand, the other running feather-light over Elizabeth's sunkissed brown hair. She was burrowed down into his pillow, one arm flung out and dangling over the edge of the bed.

Will drew her hair back from where it covered her shoulder and stroked his knuckles over the bared skin. "You are the single most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth," he murmured. "Sometimes I think if I look at you too long you'll burn my eyes. Like the sun."

Elizabeth's head jerked up, knocking Will soundly in the chin. "Get the chicken out of the bathtub," she mumbled, never waking.

Will smothered his laughter against her arm. "I love you."

"Hmmm." She made no response, but snuggled back against him.

"Elizabeth, you should be waking up now,"

There was another, louder sigh, a stretching of legs still tangled together with Will's, and then Elizabeth gave the smallest of starts. Will drew back just enough to avoid getting clipped in the chin again when her head came up this time.

"Oh, blast," she muttered, rolling onto her back and looking up at Will. "I have to go now, don't I?"

He smiled, catching up a lock of her hair and twirling it between his fingers. "Believe me, I wish you didn't. But however open-minded your father might have become, if he finds out I've compromised you before our wedding day, I won't live to see it, my darling."

Elizabeth arched an eyebrow. "Who compromised who, Will?"

He considered, recalling a twilight swim a few weeks prior, and which of them had tugged the other free of clothing and into the darkening water. "Fair enough, but I imagine that would be even less well-received."

"You're probably right." She groaned, drew her legs free of Will's, and kicked off the sheet. She padded barefoot, and bare everything else, across the small room to where her clothes lied on a chair. Will watched, and wished there was a bit more floor space between the bed and the chair. "God above, but I'm ready to be married and done with all this nonsense." She tugged her trousers on, and Will bit his lip on a pout as everything at waist-level and under was tucked away for the evening.

"Which nonsense would that be, Elizabeth? Not the sort we were just indulging in, I hope." Will's dark eyes twinkled. "I've heard marriage tends to do that."

Elizabeth turned to regard him over one shoulder, a look of such wicked amusement on her face that Will had to stomp down hard on the urge to drag her right back into the place she'd just vacated. "_No_, William," she said emphatically, thrusting her arms into the sleeves of her shirt. "Nonsense like pretending we're _not_ indulging. Nonsense like trekking back and forth from my home to yours three times a day to see each other. Nonsense," and this was accompanied by a roll of her eyes that had nothing 'come hither' about it, "like bloody stupid dress–up engagement parties with stuffy, boring people wearing too much perfume and talking about us behind our backs."

Will waited until she was done. "The talking's never seemed to bother you much before."

She faced him fully. "It doesn't bother me that they talk, Will," she said, her eyes full of reassuring warmth for him. "It bothers me that they'll be eating food my father's paying for while they're doing the talking." She buttoned up her shirt with an irritated toss of her hair. "Bloody hypocrites." She sat down hard on the chair and reached for her shoes. "At least _he_ wishes us well. That's the only thing making this ridiculous affair bearable."

"That and the 'no corsets' bit," Will reminded her. "Which you did quite a good job of thanking me for, I should add."

Elizabeth laughed, irritation evaporating. Whether it was only spitting off sparks or burning full blaze, Will had a knack for cooling her temper.

_Has to be something about the blacksmith in him. Knows how to work with fire._

"Anyway, love, it's only a little more than a month away," Will said, sitting up and locating his own clothing. He sat up straight with one boot half on, and pinned Elizabeth with a searching look. "Are you certain you don't want any more time, Elizabeth?"

"Why, are you getting cold feet?" Elizabeth teased, then leveled a finger at him. "Careful how you answer that one, Mister Turner."

"I'm serious, Elizabeth. I can't tell you how happy it makes me that you...that we're...I mean, I'm glad you want it to happen quickly. But if you want more time...if you need more time...to get everything as you want it for the day...I understand." He punctuated the stammering flow of words with a shrug. "It should be perfect. That's all."

Elizabeth crossed her arms and stood for several moments looking starry-eyed and, she was sure, like a complete dolt. "But no cold feet, right?"

Will's eyes went wide, and he ducked his head with a chuckle. "No. Most definitely not."

"Good. Because if they are feeling a bit chilly, you've got just over a month to thaw them out. And William?"

"Aye?"

"It _will_ be perfect."

She gave him a quick, chaste kiss on the lips, and then took her leave with a spring in her step.

**...........................................................**

"_He's perfect, Billy."_

_Cathleen smiled as she spoke, her face tired and a bit paler than Bill was used to, but sublimely happy. The midwife gave him a bit of a push towards the bed, then excused herself to give the family their privacy._

_Bill Turner hovered at the foot of the bed, his knees weak, as he stared at the wee little creature in his wife's arms._

"_Well are you going to come over and meet your son, or are you going to wait until he's old enough to walk over there to you?" _

_He moved, and knelt beside the bed. "He's so little," Bill breathed._

"_Yes, they do tend to come out that way," Cathleen laughed, leaning her head back. _

_Bill reached out and stroked the baby's cap of black hair. Two heavy-lidded eyes lifted to his face at the contact, and Bill felt his own prickle. _

"_Hello there, young man," he whispered, touching a finger to one soft little cheek. "I'm your daddy."_

_The baby yawned enormously, then blinked several times. Bill burst out laughing, and the tears that had threatened spilled over. "I don't think he's impressed," Bill observed._

"_Well, he needs to get to know you," Cathleen shifted the child in her arms. "Would you like to hold him now?"_

"_Is it all right?" Bill asked, eagerness and apprehension warring for control in his face and posture._

"_Of course it's all right. Come sit up here beside me."_

_Bill perched on the edge of the bed, and his wife passed him the baby. He sat rigidly, waiting for the infant to fuss, or cry, once he was out of his mother's hold, but the boy only yawned again, waving one tiny, dimpled fist in the air, and settled down into the cradle of Bill's arms without the least complaint. After a moment spent holding his breath, the tension slipped from Bill's body, and he leaned back against the headboard alongside Cathleen, whose dark head dipped down to rest on his shoulder._

_Bill pressed his face to his son's hair and inhaled deeply, eyes closed._

"_Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever smelled, Billy?" Cathleen marveled._

_Bill said nothing, only pressed his lips to the baby's head. He took the baby's hand between thumb and forefinger, examining each tiny finger, knuckle and nail. The little hand clenched in a fist around Bill's finger, and a grin split his face._

"_Have you felt this grip, Catie-girl?" he exclaimed softly. "This little lad's going to be a natural swordsman, just you watch."_

"_Let's give him time to cut a few teeth first, shall we, Bill?" Cathleen chuckled. She watched her husband and son for a while then, catching her lip between her teeth, eyes glowing. "You know, Bill Turner, I don't think I've ever seen you look so in love. Not even with me."_

_Bill smiled at her, not entirely sure he could deny it, and knowing she didn't expect him to. He leaned over and kissed Cathleen on the lips, and on the forehead. "Have you thought of a name for him, my girl?"_

"_He's going to be William, you great silly man." She ran one fingertip along the curve of the baby's ear. "William Christian Turner, like his father. Got to give a child a name he can be proud of."_

"_Not just saying that because you're too tired to be more creative, are you?" Bill teased, and his wife swatted him on the arm with a strength surprising for a woman who'd just given birth. Bill laughed, and cuddled the child closer. "William you shall be then. And I shall have to do my best to see that you _are_ proud of it."_

_Little William only gazed up at his father, tip of his pink tongue protruding from between his lips, and gave Bill's finger another mighty squeeze._

"_My William."_

The rasping scrape of stone against blade ceased, and Bill Turner held his cutlass up to examine the sharpened edge critically.

He ran his finger along the edge; the finger his baby son had once grasped with such strength when he was not yet a half-hour old. His flesh parted almost painlessly, blood running in a bright rivulet over the shining metal. Satisfied, Bill sheathed the weapon. Above him, the faded grey sails of the _Ragnarok _snapped viciously at the wind that filled them. The sun was setting, hovering just above the horizon and painting the sea and sky around them in colors that should have been breathtaking, especially to someone who'd spent almost a decade without color. Or breath, for that matter.

Bill Turner stared out across the molten-gold expanse of ocean, and thought only of how much more of it lay between him and Port Royal. If the weather and the currents remained as they were, he could expect to reach his destination two nights from now.

Maybe, after he found Barbossa, after he broke both legs and every finger, after he carved his boys' names into each side of that grizzled face, after he finally slit the evil bastard's throat and gutted him for the gulls and the crabs to finish off, maybe then Bill would be able to appreciate the colors of the sunset. Maybe William and Jack would even forgive him, when they looked down and saw what he'd become.

Bill took out his flask, and drank a quick, private toast to maybe.

TBC


	4. chapter three

See part one for disclaimers. If reading that sort of thing over and over and over again really does it for you.

......................................................

"There's a pretty little mousy. Come 'ere, little mousy. Come 'ere. 'Ave a little bit o' bread."

It was hotter than hell, their cell in the Port Royal prison smelled like low tide and feet, and Ragetti was talking to the fucking rats again.

The lanky blonde pirate was pressed up against the cell door, one arm stretched as far through the bars as he could manage, a tiny piece of bread pinched between thumb and forefinger; an offering for the scrawny brown rodent that was scavenging along the dusty floor between the cells. What Ragetti wanted with the rat, Pintel had no idea. He might have wanted a pet. He might have wanted a snack.

"Mousy mousy mousy!"

He was going to start whistling in a minute or two, and when he did, Pintel was going to grab him by the neck and beat his head against the metal door until his other eye came out.

It was almost enough to make a man look forward to getting his neck stretched. A few more weeks in this hole and Pintel might offer to tie the knots himself.

Pintel and Ragetti had been rotting – in the metaphorical, non-decomposing sense of the word -- in the prison ever since their capture, along with the other remnants of Barbossa's crew who hadn't yet made the trip to the gallows. Though they were down to eight now, there had been quite a few of them to begin with, and the cells were slow to empty. It seemed Commodore Noble-Out-the-Arse Norrington, the pretentious bastard, was adverse to simply offing them all as quickly as one corpse could be cut from the gallows and replaced by another, and had been absolutely adamant that there would be no mass graves, on land or at sea, at _his_ post. Each of the condemned men was to get a _proper_ burial, and wouldn't be sharing his patch of earth with anyone but the worms.

Each of them, that was, except for Jack Sparrow. He'd gotten a one-day head start. Three months ago.

Pintel's face twisted into a snarl. Wasn't it just like the little shit to go and get himself saved, all flashy-like, snug enough in the good graces of the governor and the commodore that they just let him fly away? Hadn't even locked him up like the rest of them beforehand, because the governor's little bitch of a daughter had ranted and raved and raised hell at the idea when they were disembarking from the _Dauntless._ No, even when he was waiting to be executed, Sparrow got superior treatment. Held under guard in private quarters.

Personally, Pintel would have liked to see him held under water. Until the bubbles disappeared.

And then, because fate seemed to have decided she _liked_ kicking them in the balls, Sparrow didn't even hang. That bloody Turner brat went and sprung him, and the lapdogs of the Crown let him go.

Pintel wasn't sure what was contributing more to his bad mood – the fact that he was going to hang sometime in the next few days, or that Jack Sparrow had evaded the noose.

Or that Ragetti was whistling at a fucking rat.

"Rags! You wanna shut the hell up, maybe?"

The blonde pirate glared at him, a hard thing to do effectively when his eyes went off in two different directions. "What's the matter with you, mate?"

"What's the matter with me? I'm sittin' on me hands waitin' to get strung up like a hooked fish, and on top of that I have to listen to you makin' conversation with the bloody _vermin_! Do a soon-to-be-dead man a favor and _shut yer bleedin' mouth_!"

"Will you two give it a fuckin' rest, already?" Twigg's voice grumbled from the next cell down, punctuated by an annoyed kick against the bars dividing them.

"Keep quiet down there!" a guard's voice shouted from somewhere up the stone stairs.

"Go bugger yourself!" Pintel shot back.

"Yeah!" Ragetti chimed in. "This 'ere's a private conversation!"

"Terribly sorry, gentlemen." An officer's uniform entered, topped off with a white wig and a smug face. Lieutenant Gillette sauntered in, hands clasped behind his back, mouth twisted snidely. "Please, carry on. Wouldn't want anything detracting from the pleasure of your stay with us." He cast an exaggerated glance around the various cells. "Though it looks as if you've at least got a bit more breathing room now, hmm?"

Pintel curled his lip and spit on the floor. Gillette was, as far as Pintel was concerned, one more entry on the list of reasons he'd like to bend Jack Sparrow over a barrel. Sparrow's absence from their company lied at the heart of Gillette's malcontent, and as Pintel and the rest of the condemned former crew of the _Black Pearl _were suffering the backlash, it suited Pintel to lay blame for Gillette's mood on the escaped pirate.

Gillette had not exactly kept mum how he felt about the commodore's decision to leave Sparrow be. Not at first, anyway. Not until Norrington thanked him for his concerns and assured him that if and when Sparrow presented a threat to Port Royal, Norrington would deal with him, making it clear that was the end of the discussion.

Gillette had dutifully said nothing more, but his displeasure, now accompanied by a healthy dose of resentment after being put in his place, found other outlets. With Sparrow out of reach, and Norrington a superior officer, that left the last dregs of Barbossa's crew as the unlucky recipients of Gillette's petty torments.

"If you fellows over here on the left are getting bored with the atmosphere, I could probably arrange to have you all moved over to the other side. Nice unobstructed view of the gallows over there, isn't that so?" Gillette grinned at the prisoners to his right. "Not that you won't all get a chance to see them up close, of course."

Ragetti's rat crawled a few steps closer, and he snatched it up, drawing a startled squeak from the creature. "I dunno," he said, cupping the struggling animal firmly in both hands, holding it near his face, almost nose-to-nose. "I think I like the sideshow that comes through right in here. Not every day it is ye see a talking pig."

There was rough laughter from the rest of the crew, and Gillette's face reddened.

"Mind your tongue, filth," Gillette said, stepping closer to the bars in what was probably intended to be a menacing manner.

"Why? What you gonna do, hang us?" Niperkin demanded.

"Nah, mate. He'll do worse," Pintel put in. "He'll get us pardoned so's we have to listen to him talk some more."

"Fuck me, no. I'll slit me own throat, first."

"If you're that eager to come to your ends," Gillette said tightly, "perhaps we can do something to hasten them on."

"Once you get the commodore's say so, you mean?" Pintel sneered. "Good luck with that, mate. Seems you've not had much success swayin' him to yer way of thinkin', am I right?" Sidling up to the bars, Pintel gave the lieutenant a sly half-grin. "Now person'ly, sir, I wouldn't mind seein' Jack Sparrow meet the business end of yer pistol. I think you've got the right of it, wantin' to hunt the mongrel down, never mind what ol' Norrington says."

The pinched expression on Gillette's face pinched a little more, but he kept his voice near bland. "Sparrow will come to the same end as the rest of your ilk, in due time."

"Oh, sure, mate. Sure. Long as you're in no hurry, seein' as how the good commodore don't seem to be."

Gillette's eyes darkened briefly, and his lips pressed together in a bloodless line before he spoke again. "Commodore Norrington may not have his eye set on the _Black Pearl_ at the moment, but rest assured, gentlemen, he's not the only man in His Majesty's Navy capable of dealing with pirates."

"'Course not. After all, he's got you here overseein' our cages, whilst he's otherwise engaged. Sure he wouldn't leave none but the best to that task," Pintel went on, barely smothering a chuckle at the flash of indignation that passed over Gillette's face. _It almost ain't sporting._

Not that Pintel had ever been one to let that stop him.

Gillette gave a haughty sniff then, his feathers smooth once more, and cast a distasteful look at the group around him. "As pleasurable as this conversation has been," he said coolly, moving away. "I have other duties. But I'm sure I'll be talking to you again." He paused mid-step. "Well, _some_ of you, anyway," he amended, before trotting up the steps and out of sight.

"'Some of you, anyway,'" Ragetti parroted in a high-pitched voice. "Someone thinks they're bloody clever, don't they, my mousy?" He made kissing noises at the rat, which had by now stopped squirming and hung frozen in his hands, beady black eyes huge, the only movement the furious quivering of its nose and whiskers.

"What were you on about with all that, Pintel?" Twigg demanded.

Pintel gripped the bars of the door, leaning against it and studying the stairway the lieutenant had departed by. "Just making a bit of me own amusement, Twigg me lad," he replied.

"Yeah, well, just so's yer amusement don't get any of us flogged. If I'm gonna hang I at least wanna hang in one piece." Twigg glanced at Ragetti and made a disgusted noise. "Jesus, man, either eat it or let it go."

"He ain't for eatin'!" Ragetti shot back, indignant. "I'm gonna feed him up and make friends, and then I'm gonna send him out to steal the jailor's keys."

"Bleedin' hell. I don't believe what I'm hearin'."

"Did ye hurt yerself comin' up with that one, Ragetti?"

"What's wrong with it?" the blonde demanded, inadvertently giving the rat a sharp squeeze. "Rats like li'l shiny things."

"That's crows, you halfwit."

Ragetti slumped down, scowling in silence, rubbing his thumb on the top of the rat's head absently.

"Crows?"

"Aye."

Ragetti pondered this. "Well, what do rats like?"

"Apparently shit-for-brains one-eyed pirates."

"You're this fuckin' close, mate, I swear on me mother." The fist that Ragetti shook at Maximo was, unfortunately, the one that was still around the rat, and at that point the animal decided it had had enough, and sank its teeth into the pirate's hand. Ragetti dropped it with a yelp, and the rat darted quickly out of the cell, disappearing into the shadows at the end of the hall. "Dammit!" he bellowed, and slapped one hand against the floor in frustration.

"Oh, pity. Guess we won't be escapin' after all," Twigg commented.

"If you ain't got something helpful to say, keep your bloody mouth shut," Ragetti growled back. He shook his stinging hand and glared at the tiny, deep lacerations left by the rodent's wicked incisors. "Bloody rat. Next time I _will_ eat you, you bastard!"

.....................................................................

Bill Turner stared at the faint, half-circle scar on his right forearm, the remnant of a nasty bite. He'd received it on the day he'd first met Jack Sparrow. He had, in point of fact, received it _from_ Jack Sparrow.

The ship Bill had been serving on as quartermaster had come upon another vessel dead in the water. Literally dead; the entire crew had been slaughtered. There had only been one survivor; a seventeen-year-old stowaway who'd been rather badly wounded and had come over a bit skittish and resistant to Bill's attempts to coax him from his hiding place. The lad had been bedraggled and bloody and half-starved, and Bill had, before long, come to the conclusion that he would make more progress by simply reaching in and removing the boy, rather than waiting for him to emerge on his own.

It had seemed like a good, expedient plan, right up until the point when Bill had actually touched the kid, who'd looked small and meek and injured, right up 'til the point when he touched back. With his teeth.

Bill ended up needing four stitches in his arm. It had been the first and last time he ever underestimated Jack.

Later on, much later on, it had amused Jack immensely to tell people, when Bill was asked about the scar, that Jack had given it to him when Bill tried to touch him inappropriately. After about the third time, Bill had ceased to be mortified by this, as Jack's tale-telling grew more elaborate the more distress he managed to wring out of Bill with it. That, and the fact that people never seemed to fully believe anything Jack Sparrow said. He could've said rain was wet and gotten dubious looks.

Staring at the silvery scar, Bill suddenly realized he was smiling, and as soon as he realized it the expression froze and shattered. He jerked his shirtsleeve down, covering the old wound.

Strange, how he'd thought that one had hurt. That hadn't been pain. Had seemed like it, back then, but Bill knew better now.

...................................................

The small stretch of rocky beach the _Black Pearl_ had dropped anchor off of was named Charity Point on the map Jack had consulted. That was not the place's real name, or at least not the name its owner had given it, but the map had been drawn by a pirate for use by pirates, the land's owner lived six miles inland, and it was a location plenty charitable to Jack and his purposes. Real was what you made of it, as Jack liked to say. Sometimes when no one was around to listen.

"Come back to this beach five nights from now," Jack instructed Anamaria. "I'll give you a light, just before midnight, down at the southernmost end. Wait ten minutes before you give me one back, then put a boat in."

"Why ten minutes?" Ana wondered, her words clipped. She still disapproved, but was now disapproving silently.

"Because if you were, hypothetically, a ship of the British navy, and you happened, hypothetically, to have gotten a bug in your ear that a certain wanted pirate had taken to land near here, and you were keeping a weather eye out for said scalawag when you noticed, in the dead of night, a wee mysterious light where there oughtn't be any such luminescence, and you suspected--"

"Hypothetically?" she interjected, eyebrow arching.

"Right you are!" Jack exclaimed, pointing a jeweled and enthusiastic finger at her. "And you suspected that this may be a sign of shifty dealings involving your wanted man, might you not, cunning military mind that you are, venture that the given signal was awaiting a response affirming the all-clear, and immediately give a signal of your own, so as to lure the criminal into false security?"

Ana considered the possibility that the perpetually tipsy gait was a direct result of Jack not pausing for breath often enough once his mouth got going. "So by not replying to your signal with one of our own straight away, you'll know it's really us, and not someone trying to get the drop on you."

Jack beamed. "Precisely! Not that we have to waste too much energy worrying about such a possibility, what with it hinging, as I said, on a _cunning_ military mind. Running across one of those is a bit like the odds on being hit by lightning. When you're below decks," he amended after a second's consideration.

"All right, Jack, here's a hypothetical for you," Anamaria carried on, drumming her fingers on her crossed arms. "What do we do if there ain't no light twinkling on this beach five nights from now, on account of your stupid ass being all dead back in Port Royal when that horseshit luck of yours runs out?"

Jack gave a dainty, dismissive wave of his hand. "Oh ye of little faith."

"_Jack!"_

A man could _shave_ with the edge in Anamaria's tone when she was riled.

"Bloody hell, Ana, would you strain yourself showing a _smidgen_ of optimism?" Jack burst out, throwing his arms in the air. "My stupid ass _has_ managed to stay alive through situations a tiny bit more perilous and demanding than a simple social call!"

Anamaria's eyebrow climbed a little more.

Jack sighed, loudly and put-upon, eyes rolling in exasperation "If I don't signal, sail to Tortuga and give it a week to the hour once you land. After that, it's up to you. Satisfied?"

"Yes, I am." Ana actually smiled.

"Only took a bloody tooth-pulling," Jack grumbled.

"Oh, and Captain?"

"_Yes_, Anamaria?"

"No worries about your _Pearl _while you're away, all right?" Anamaria patted a hand against the bulkhead. "I'll keep her safe and sound for you."

...................................................

"Bit of an odd one, is Anamaria," Jack mused sometime later, as Cotton rowed him ashore.

Insomuch as it was possible for a mute man currently without his translator parrot to convey a message about pots and kettles while sitting in a boat in the dark, Cotton did so.

"Awfully big on rules for a pirate. Rather like a schoolteacher with a sword, ain't she?"

Cotton didn't argue this, his silence more the "I agree" type, than the "whatever, you dolt, I have no tongue" type.

"I keep waiting for her to take a strap to me knuckles. Woman'd put Barbossa himself over her knee."

There was an extremely pregnant pause as this image sunk in.

"I wish I hadn't said that." Jack absently tapped the heel of his hand lightly against the side of his head and looked disgusted.

The boat slid into the shallows then, before the conversation had the chance to deteriorate any further.

"Well, Mr. Cotton, this'd be where I take my leave, and I thank you for the drop-off." Jack climbed out of the boat, swaying just a bit too far to one side when his feet touched down, then righting himself with an annoyed glance at ground that was jarringly firm. Cotton waited long enough to make sure his captain wasn't going to end up on his ass before handing over the canvas sack that held Jack's signal lantern, among other things.

Jack spared a look into the darkness, where the _Pearl_ was a shadow on black water. For the first time since conceiving this plan, he hesitated, the barest ounce of a doubt buzzing at him like a wasp. He'd laid his plans out with Gibbs, he'd laughed off Anamaria's concerns, and he'd imagined with impish glee the expressions on Will and Elizabeth's faces when he turned up on their stoop. There was naught but a few paces left to take him out of the water, leaving his ship in his crew's hands.

_Are you as fuckin' mad as everyone says, mate? _The thought struck him, sudden and sharp as a blow to the face.

Ten years, he'd chased her. His _Pearl_. His heart. His home. Ten years he'd swore he'd have her back, and it would take prying his cold, dead fingers from her helm to make him let her go again.

_Wouldn't even take no violence this time. Handed her over just as pretty as you please. All they have to do is not come back._

Whether he hesitated just a little too long, or spoke part of his thoughts aloud, he didn't know, but a slight pressure on his arm yanked Jack back to the here and now.

Cotton's work-worn hand only lingered a moment before releasing its light grasp. The old sailor waited until he knew, even in the darkness, that he had his captain's eye, then he gestured with a quick movement of his head towards the beach.

Jack smiled crookedly. "I'm thinking too much, eh?"

Cotton gave a one-shouldered shrug, and the smallest nod.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you're right, Cotton." Jack clapped the other man briefly on the shoulder. "Go on with you, old man, before Marty roasts that bloody bird of yours for supper."

He helped Cotton shove off of the bottom, then took those few splashing steps up onto the beach. Jack watched the rowboat melt into the night, and spared one more glance beyond, to the place where the _Black Pearl's_ bulk blotted out the waxing light of the moon. He touched the brim of his hat, a light, flitting brush of his fingertips. "Fair winds find you, old girl. I'll see you soon."

Jack found a sheltered place to stow his lantern, then brushed the sand off his coat and got his bearings. It would be dawn or close to it before he got to Port Royal on foot.

Yes indeed, when the sun came up, things were going to get _interesting_.

**TBC**


	5. chapter four

Firstly, thank you to (deep deep breath) BlackJackSilver, Peacockgirl, Trinity Day, FalconWing, DebH, Gayle, geekmama, Lady Lorax, Dragon Girl Revlis, and koriaena. Thank you for your feedback, as it is my drug of choice, and is greatly appreciated. I'm sorry this next part took so long. I was starting to think somebody was going to have to beat this chapter out of me. It wasn't being cooperative. Words and sentences and even paragraphs were obliterated almost as soon as they were out, for I looked on them and they did not please me. I'm not sure if I was unfocused or just too damn picky, but in any event...here you have it.

Also, I apologize in advance for the scenes NOT being divided. Apparently ff.n is no longer recognizing the happy little rows of periods I used in the original document for this very purpose. Why? Who knows? I've tried to fix it. It won't fix. The scenes aren't marked off. Drives me up the wall, but if I fight with this anymore tonight my head's going to explode.

See part one for disclaimers.

"_What made you decide to marry Mother?"_

_Five-year-old William Turner knelt on a chair at the kitchen counter, rinsing the dishes his mother washed and regarding his father with intense dark eyes._

"_Dishes over the washtub, Will; you're dripping all over the floor!" his mother chastised hastily, turning him around._

_Bill sat at the table, slicing up an apple. "Ahh, let's see..." he said slowly, leaning back and stretching his legs out, one ankle hooked over the other._

"_Watch yourself, Turner," Cathleen growled with a twinkle in her eye._

"_Don't distract me, Catie, I'm trying to think." Bill chewed thoughtfully on a sliver of apple, one finger tapping against his lips. _

"_Was it because she was so pretty?" Will asked, craning his neck around to study his father. _

"_Well, she was fair enough, that's true. But a man can't just go marrying the first pretty face he lays eyes on. Or the second, or the third, or the--"_

_Cathleen cleared her throat._

"_Point being, lad, it's more what's going on in a girl's head and heart you should concern yourself with," Bill said quickly._

"_Mother, what was going on in your head when you married Papa?" Will asked quite earnestly, and frowned slightly when his mother doubled over laughing. "What?!"_

_Bill just grinned and popped another bite of apple into his mouth. "Out of the mouths of babes, eh Catie? I've often wondered that one myself."_

"_Ohhh," Cathleen groaned, catching her breath and wiping at her eyes. "Will, my little love, you knock me to the floor some days. Your da makes me laugh, too. That's one reason I had to have him for keeps."_

"_And your mother's an easy one to make smile, she is," Bill went on. "That's probably why I have her."_

_The little boy wrinkled his nose skeptically. "That's it? You were funny and she was easy?" he demanded, then waited impatiently for both of his parents to stop cackling. Bill only narrowly avoided choking on his apple. _

"_Oh, Will," Bill gasped out, "if you're plannin' on writin' us a love song, wait 'til we're dead, aye? Else we won't be able to look the neighbors in the eye."_

"_I'm not writing any songs," Will said matter-of-factly, in that particular tone of condescension that only children at the end of their tethers with adults can manage. "I just want to know. In case I want to get married."_

"_Got someone in mind, do you?" Bill asked, straight-faced._

"No_," Will said emphatically, rolling his eyes. "I just wanted to _know_. In case."_

"_Ah, Will, when you find your lass, just bring her home to supper. If she doesn't run screaming from your mother's cooking, she's a keeper."_

_The dishrag hit Bill dead between his eyes, and it was Will's turn to curl up giggling as his mother wiped her soapy hands on her apron._

Elizabeth was wrong. Their wedding day wouldn't be perfect.

Will hammered away at the hot steel of another blade almost meditatively. The steady, ringing beats pounded in his ears; the impact of each strike traveled up his arm, making his fingers tingle and his shoulder ache satisfyingly. He'd awakened even earlier than usual this morning (dawn had still been a couple hours off – Elizabeth would have been appalled) and had thrown himself into his work without even bothering with breakfast, in hopes of shaking off the melancholy thoughts that plagued him.

Missing his mother and father had settled into the lingering pain of an old, long-since-healed wound; something that had ached so long it was simply _there_, accepted and lived with, but not given much active attention.

This morning, however, their absence was stabbing Will in the chest.

He was getting married in a few short weeks, and his parents weren't going to be there. His mother wouldn't drive him mad fussing with his clothes beforehand. His father wouldn't dance with Elizabeth afterwards.

How they would have loved Elizabeth! She would have whispered conspiratorially with his mother about their questionable taste in Turner men, and impressed his father with her well-rounded knowledge of raunchy and inappropriate drinking songs. If his memory of his father was anything to go by, of course. The man Will remembered, the one he'd last seen in the flesh when he was six years old, had given his son a worldly sort of music appreciation every time they were safely out of his mother's earshot.

_Then he had the bloody nerve to look shocked if I happened to repeat any of it in front of her_, Will recalled fondly.

They'd been a couple of disloyal partners-in-crime, that was for sure and certain. Getting into any sort of trouble they could find, swearing each other to secrecy, then tripping over themselves to be the first to rat the other out when confronted with one of Cathleen's harpoon-tipped glares.

"_You'll never believe what I caught the lad at this time, Catie!"_

"_Papa _said_ we could, Mother!"_

Come to think of it, Elizabeth had a glare in her arsenal an awful lot like his mother's.

Will sighed heavily, and put the hammer away. He wasn't one for feeling sorry for himself, but "it's not fair" was beginning to run through his mind in a mantra.

_Good lord, man, you're marrying the girl of your dreams. A woman who by rights shouldn't even give you _directions_ will be giving you her whole life. What more could you want?_

Simple. He wanted his parents. He wanted his mother and father there when he got married.

Hell, as long as he was wishing for the impossible, he wanted Jack there, too, standing (albeit unsteadily) as his best man. He wanted to marry Elizabeth barefoot on the beach, her clad in seashells and flowers and not much else. Then they'd go have their honeymoon on the most notorious pirate ship in the Caribbean, do unmentionable things to each other in the crow's nest, and they wouldn't be back for a month. Or two.

A flush that had nothing to do with the heat in the forge crept across his skin, and the chuckle that rose in his throat was almost enough to shake loose the lump that had formed there.

"Elizabeth, you're a terrible influence on me," he thought out loud, smiling.

A little while later, the new blade cooling and the darkest of his grey thoughts exorcised, for the time being at least, Will decided he was ready for a break. He headed for the wash bucket, and grimaced at the amount of ash and soot in the water. Will grabbed up the bucket and went outside, emptying the dingy water onto the ground on his way to the well.

Dawn was still fresh and soft, the air still relatively cool, for which Will was grateful. By mid-morning the summer sun would already be getting fierce, and the open air would offer little relief from the smothering temperatures of the forge.

Will cranked up the well bucket and took the time for a long drink before refilling his wash water. A little gust of a breeze kicked up, setting the wind chimes hanging from the eave of the well spinning and ringing gently. Will had strung them together as a lark a couple years back, using odd and eye-catching bits of metal discarded from his work, along with little pieces of mirrored glass.

Little mirrors that suddenly reflected fragments of a form that wasn't Will's as it moved across the yard.

Kneeling to pour his water, Will's eyes flickered up, and his muscles tensed. He kept his hands at their task, and his eyes on the chimes' mirrors, on the broken jigsaw images of grey and red and brown they threw back at him, betraying the intruder's presence with no sound save the tinkling of tiny bells.

Will straightened, and waited for the sound of a light footfall just behind him before he swung the empty bucket around and into the midsection of the person creeping close. There was a loud and pained "oompf!", and Will had just enough time as he turned to see a very familiar body hit the ground horizontally before his legs were swept out from under him by a well-placed kick.

The bucket hit the ground with a crash, and then there was quiet broken only by the sound of wheezing as Will Turner and Jack Sparrow lied flat on their backs, boots tangled at the ankles, and tried to remember how to breathe.

Will rolled his head around enough to bring the prone pirate into his line of vision.

Jack stared, wide-eyed, up at the clouds. The fingers of one hand twitched, then tapped thoughtfully on the ground. "Next time," he panted, "I might submit to convention..." a bit more panting, "...and knock."

"Jack," Will said when he'd caught a little of his breath back. "Lovely of you to stop by." He pushed himself into a sitting position and winced, leaning his weight back on his hands. "You know, you left going ass over teakettle, too. Is this going to be a tradition?"

Jack started to laugh, but it hurt, so he bit his lip in an attempt to stop. "Shut it, you cheeky whelp," he said, rolling over onto his side. "Fine way to greet an old friend. Come to congratulate you on your upcoming nuptials and get assaulted. 'Hello Jack, how've you been, sure have missed you, oh and here, have a bit of internal bleeding.' Risk life and limb avoiding the navy just to let you beat the hell out of me--"

His tirade was cut off as Will yanked him to his feet and into a fierce hug that threatened to crack any ribs the bucket might have missed.

"I've missed you, Jack," Will said, grinning. "How've you been?"

"Prior to the manhandling, you mean?" Jack groused, but Will noticed he returned the embrace just as tightly before tugging himself loose. "Beat me to paste and then come over all cuddly...where's me bleedin' hat?" Brushing himself off, Jack retrieved the displaced item and set it primly back on his head. "Hardly proper for you to be out here gropin' me when you've got a fiancée for that sort of thing. Speaking of which," Jack stepped close and swatted Will playfully on the arm, winking, "good on you, lad. Don't know why in God's name anyone would want to get married, but if you're dead set on it, you couldn't ask for a better woman than Elizabeth."

Will cocked his head and crossed his arms, still feeling a bit dazed, as much from his friend's sudden appearance as his own meeting with the ground, if not more so. "How in the world did you find out?"

Slipping fluidly around Will, Jack narrowed his eyes. "I have _ways_, William, savvy? Just got to listen to the wind, and watch the stars."

Will snorted. "You're so full of shit you ought to be growing grass out your ears," he shot.

Jack grinned and flung an arm around the younger man's shoulders, walking them both towards the forge. "Come on. I haven't had me breakfast today, and if you're going to beat up your visitors, the least you can do is feed them afterwards."

Twenty minutes later, the two of them were ensconced in Will's quarters with tea, bread, and honey, and Will was well on his way to getting Jack caught up with "life on the damned dry ground", as Jack had dubbed it.

"Well, can't say as I'm thrilled at the idea of all the king's men taking a page out of your book of tricks," Jack was saying with a wry smile, "but I would have loved to be a mouse in the corner when ol' Jamie Norrington came begging your assistance. Did he require a drink of water to help him choke down that chalky pride of his?"

Will gave Jack a reproachful look, but couldn't quite resist a chuckle. "He didn't come begging. And it didn't appear to pain him in the least, if you can believe that."

"I believe in mermaids and the walking dead. But James Norrington giving you your due without it being extracted from him at knifepoint..." Jack shook his head and raised an eyebrow. "You're quite sure he wasn't drunk?"

"Quite sure."

"Running a high fever?"

"Healthy as a horse."

Jack blew a soft breath through the steam rising off of his tea, one sun-browned, fine-boned finger tracing the rim of the cup. "Possessed?"

"Jack!"

He held one hand up in surrender, and had the grace to look sheepish. "All right, all right. I'm only playin' with you, Will. It's a fine opportunity to come your way. Though if I come up against any redcoats who actually make a fair show of whooping my ass, I'll know who to blame, and you and I shall have _words_, whelp."

"Well, just be sure to cheat, and you should be fine," Will retorted.

Jack's eyes shifted thoughtfully as he considered this, sucking a bit of honey off one thumb, and he nodded. "'S true." His eyes glittered wickedly. "Not planning on teaching them the underhanded bits then, are you?"

Will turned a bland, innocent expression on him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Ah."

"Don't make that bloody face at me." Will jabbed a finger in Jack's direction.

"I didn't make a face."

"You did. You made that bloody annoying 'I know more about what you're saying than you do' face. And you had a _tone_."

"I didn't have a tone."

"It was smug."

"Well, don't try to lie to me, and I won't have reason to be smug when I see through it." Jack said with a tiny shrug of one shoulder.

Will smirked. "So you're admitting you're smug?"

"You admitting you're a liar?"

"Absolutely not," Will said firmly, leaning back in his chair. "I've been employed to show the commodore's men how to improve their technique, and I'm going to do just that."

"You're plannin' on holdin' out on them, Will Turner, and don't you bloody dare deny it, because I _know _you." Jack was practically wriggling with self-satisfaction.

"I'm going to teach them everything they need to know," Will informed him matter-of-factly.

"And not one single scrap they don't." Jack raised his eyebrows expectantly at Will, who managed not to smile for almost ten seconds. "Ha!"

"Oh, shut up," Will grumbled unconvincingly.

"You toss those slippery answers at someone else, whelp; I _invented_ them."

"Who do you think I learned from?" Will pointed out.

"And I couldn't be prouder, believe you me. Cheating, lying, defying authority...I'd say I'm doing a fine job of rubbing off on you." Jack tipped his chair back off its front legs and toyed with one tattered end of his red scarf. "Never had any siblings to corrupt. Sort of fun, really. One day you'll thank me for helping to shape your character."

"Thanks, Jack," Will said suddenly, one foot striking out to nudge Jack's chair further off-balance, drawing a yelp from the pirate as he lurched forward to keep from toppling over.

"_That_," Jack growled, bouncing a piece of bread off Will's forehead with a deft flick of his fingers, "wasn't very nice. See now, if you'd had someone to whip your skinny ass into shape, you'd be more respectful of your elders."

It struck somewhere other than where Jack had intended, and he saw the sadness that passed over Will's face like a cloud blown in front of the sun, though the younger man glanced quickly away, and was making an effort at an easy smile when he met Jack's eyes again. "You might stand a chance at it if you sneak up on me from behind or give me a face full of ash first," Will said, in a voice that didn't quite have the lighthearted bite Jack knew it was supposed to.

"Bill would've been proud of you, you know," Jack said quietly.

Will looked taken aback, then his lips quirked in a half-smile. "You sure about that, are you? Me passing his teaching on to people who'll probably use it against men like him?"

"There aren't many men like your father, Will," Jack informed him, casually tipping his chair back once more. "Certainly not among those the commodore hunts, if that's what's weighing on your mind. And he _would_ be proud of you. Not just for what you do with those blades of yours, though I'm sure he'd puff up like a peacock if you gave him credit for even half your skill. You do his name honor." He caught up a beaded lock of his hair, twisting the bright trinkets absently, giving Will the slightly sleepy gaze that he usually adopted when his mind was running at its wildest pace. "He never spoke of you with anything _but_ pride."

Will swallowed hard. "Did he speak of me often?"

Staring into Will's hopeful face, Jack searched for an answer that wouldn't hurt, before deciding it was futile. "Not often, Will," he replied carefully, flinching at his friend's crestfallen expression almost before it appeared, and hastened to clarify himself. "Not because you weren't in his thoughts, lad. You were. Always. But it was a hard thing for him to dwell on. It killed him to be so far from you and your mum, for so long."

Will stared out the window, absorbing this. "We certainly had no way of knowing it," he replied, his voice sharp around the edges. "He scarcely ever wrote us in all those years it was killing him to be away."

"Will, he couldn't," Jack admonished gently, leaning forward, drawing Will's attention back to him. "It's rather difficult for a man avoiding the notice of the crown to find reliable handling of his correspondence. And even when it could be managed, keep in mind, William, that there were eyes on your father he'd just as soon not see the names and whereabouts of his loved ones."

"He was willing to risk it to spite Barbossa."

"It wasn't mere spite, lad. Bill wasn't that petty." Jack's head bowed, eyes half veiled by his dark lashes. "He was trying to make amends. Even the scales. Oh, he wanted Barbossa to suffer; I don't doubt that. But it was bigger than that for Bill, it was. He wanted justice done. For me." Jack turned what might have been a pained catch of his breath into a dismissive snort. "Bleedin' idiot."

Will chewed his lip pensively. "Why didn't he help you that night, Jack?" he asked.

"Will, don't." It had the ring of a warning to it.

"He was your friend. He should have done _something_!" Will pressed.

"Like what, exactly?" Jack replied, more calmly than Will felt was appropriate. "Throw himself between me and the wolves? That only works when the wolves have some miniscule speck of human decency somewhere behind the jaws."

"He should have tried."

Jack sighed. It was some sort of blood-linked Turner compulsion, this unhealthy insistence on getting between Jack and whatever or whoever wanted his head on a given week. "Your father was a good man, Will. Much of the time we spent in each other's company involved him disentangling me from difficulties of varying type and degree. Now there were plenty of those times, despite Bill's arguments to the contrary, that I had things quite well in hand all by me onesies. As for the others..." Jack shook his head. "I would have been dead a dozen times over if not for Bill Turner. But you make a habit of swimmin' where it's rough and deep, sooner or later you've got to keep your own head above water, savvy? Bill had no business jumping in after me when there were people on shore somewhere waiting for him, depending on him." This last was said with a trace of anger that caught Will off-guard, and his brows drew together in a small, thoughtful frown as he regarded his friend.

"You made him stay out of it, didn't you?" Will ventured. "How?"

"I dropped a word or two about priorities," Jack replied. It had been a few words more than that, actually, but not many. There had been little time; once Barbossa had tipped his hand, it had been only a scant couple of hours before they reached the barren little island he'd intended Jack to die on. "Then I reminded him that unless he'd turned with the rest of them, I was still his captain and he had to follow my orders."

"And you ordered him to save himself." It wasn't a question, and apparently the pirate decided that relieved him of the obligation to answer.

Will worried lightly at his lower lip. It wasn't the answer he'd wanted, but he wasn't really sure what would've been. The futile anger he'd felt towards his father still curled the edges of his thoughts, like slow-burning paper. And he felt ashamed for being angry.

Jack swirled the last vestiges of his tea in the bottom of his cup and peered curiously at the pattern the dregs made when they settled. "What's chewin' on your leg now, Will?" he asked without looking up.

"Nothing you can help me be rid of."

Jack twitched one shoulder in a small shrug. "Even so."

"I shouldn't be angry with him, Jack. It's not right, not when I have so little of him left."

"Right and wrong don't always sleep in separate bedrooms, lad." Catching Will's look, Jack smiled softly. "They get a bit blurry, 's what I mean."

"But he was a good person. I know that. I remember that." Will shook his head, a lock of hair tumbling down into his eyes. "And whatever else he did with his life, I know he tried to do right by the people he loved. He died trying to rectify what happened to you."

The statement hurt a hell of a lot more than something said so utterly without malice had any right to, and Jack silently wondered how someone as adept with weapons as Will could be quite so completely unaware of the knife he was twisting in Jack's gut. "He died courageously." _And horribly. I could tell you about the one where he comes crawling across the floor towards me, all grey and bloated and twisted, trailing crushed legs and seaweed behind him..._

"...help but wonder how things would have turned out if he'd acted that night. Or if he'd never left England to begin with." Will laughed, a hushed, humorless exhalation of breath. "Selfish of me, isn't it? He left to provide my mother and I with a better life."

Jack turned the teacup this way and that in his hands, and lifted fathomless eyes to meet Will's. "It's not selfish for a son to want his father near, Will." _As opposed to dragging a man with a son that was missing him along on an idiotic disaster of a voyage and getting him killed for your own damnable pride?_

Considering how many times he'd been hit in the head, Jack would have thought the part of his brain where that particular annoying little voice lived might have been incapacitated, but clearly that wasn't the case.

"Have you never been angry at him, then?" Will wondered. "In all the time since the mutiny?"

Jack thought back to the day he'd first learned what had become of Bill, when Joshamee Gibbs, whom Jack had known for mere weeks at the time, had come to him bearing ill news and pity. Jack hadn't reacted well to either one.

Gibbs had respectfully left him alone while he'd sobbed himself sick, showing up several hours later, pity wisely replaced by a couple of large, full bottles. Jack had stared up at him from where he lied on the floor, kohl-tinged streaks on his face, but his eyes long since dry.

"_He died for me,"_ Jack had said, his voice hoarse, and eerily empty, like the air after a squall.

"_Then have a drink for him, mate,"_ Gibbs had replied, and it had sounded like wisdom to Jack.

Regarding Bill Turner's struggling son across the remains of their breakfast, Jack had to admit to anger of his own. "Yeah, Will. S'pose there's been a time or two I've been a bit cross with 'im."

"And have you forgiven him?"

_You know what the lad wants to hear, Sparrow, so just give it to him. You know your way around a bloody lie._

"When it comes that, I guess I haven't."

_Oh, what the bloody buggering hell was that?_

That little voice was becoming a right fucking stink of a thing to get rid of.

"Ah." Will said it like he understood, which Jack knew, of course, he didn't. But there had been more than enough enlightenment for one day.

There was quiet for a long while then, not exactly uncomfortable, but the sort that needed breaking, all the same.

"I think I've got an octopus," Jack announced suddenly.

There was subsequently a bit more quiet time as Will decided whether or not this was an alarming statement, considering the source. He came down on the side of not; it was when Jack started sounding really logical that you generally needed to worry. "I beg your pardon?"

Jack was squinting into his cup. He looked up and held it towards Will. "In m'leaves. Looks like an octopus. See the little legs?"

Will looked, because a year ago the idea of him having breakfast with a fugitive pirate would have been ludicrous, as well. "Huh. You're right."

"What've you got?"

"It's...hmmm. Looks like...wait a minute...yes. I believe it's...oh, it's definitely a monkey."

Will was proud of how straight his face was. Jack stared, eyes widening almost imperceptibly.

"You don't have a monkey."

"No, I really do."

"You don't have a monkey in your cup. Let me see."

Will clutched it closer. "Just let's not worry about it, Jack."

Jack was coming around the table now. "Will, give me the bloody cup."

Will slid smoothly out of his seat and backed away, raising up on his toes and holding the offending piece of porcelain out of Jack's reach. "No, it'll only upset you." He backed deftly around the room as Jack followed him.

"It won't upset me, because there is no bloody monkey! William, I swear to God--"

"You're making a scene, Jack. Someone might hear." He switched the cup to his left hand before Jack could claim it.

"You're a bloody liar, whelp."

"Maybe, but you're too short to know for sure."

"All right now, that was cheap and uncalled for," Jack informed him, and repaid the grievous insult with an elbow to the stomach, catching the teacup neatly in one hand as Will dropped it, doubling over. "Ha!" the pirate exclaimed triumphantly, peering critically at the dregs. "Nothing like a monkey." He twirled it by the handle on one finger, eyeballing Will haughtily. "And that was _mean_, little brother."

Will scowled, rubbing the sore spot on his stomach. "Well, you'll be consoled by the fact that we'll have matching bruises. That bloody hurt, you ass."

"Smidge less than the bucket did, I'll wager."

"Sorry. Next time you sneak up on me in my own yard I'll be careful to aim where I'll do less damage. Like your head."

Jack smirked. "Aren't you just full of piss and wind today," he observed. "I do believe Miss Swann's rubbing off on you. Speaking of which, what say we go and call on your lady fair? Hardly polite for me to sit around here all day with you and not so much as drop by."

"Oh, yes, marvelous idea. Let's just take a walk up to the governor's house right now, in broad daylight," Will said cheerily, gathering up their dirty dishes. "You and Elizabeth will have just enough time to say hello to each other before you're hauled off and hung."

Jack crossed his arms and fixed Will with a withering look. "Do you honestly think I can't make my way through this town undetected at any hour of the day or night, Will Turner?"

Bill Turner stepped off the gangplank of the _Ragnarok_, rucksack over his shoulder, and breathed in deeply, tasting the air.

The last time he'd set foot in Port Royal had been when he'd gotten off the ship from England. After he'd seen Will for the last time, and before he'd met Jack for the first.

_To all things a season._

Bill proceeded along the dock, coming before long to a short line of men standing before the harbormaster's podium, waiting their turns to be recorded into the docking ledger. He stepped dutifully to the end of the line, hands folded patiently in front of him. He could have attempted to slip by, but it wouldn't serve his purposes as well. He would draw less attention to himself if he made no attempt to conceal his presence.

_That sounds like Jack's sort of reasoning._

No, no sneaking. Not yet. He would stand, and he would wait, and he would leave a name with the harbormaster.

When the man in front of him moved on his way, Bill stepped up to the harbormaster with his shilling already in hand and an expression of good-natured boredom on his face.

"Hotter than the devil's oven today, isn't it?" he observed, setting the money down before the other man.

"Hmph," the white-wigged man replied in what could have been anything from agreement to annoyance at an uninvited attempt to converse. "Which one's yours?"

"I'm in on the _Ragnarok_. Not mine, though; her captain's back on board."

"And he is...?"

"Deems. Henry Deems."

The quill pen scratched along the page. "And you are—oh, blast it. Just a minute." He snapped, attention drawn to a group of men a little way off, who had unloaded several barrels onto the dock, and were now making to walk away. "You! Those can't be left there!" he called sharply, grabbing up his purse and taking a few steps towards the departing group.

"The bloody wagon ain't here, old man. We got nothin' else to do with 'em 'til it comes!"

"If your transport's not here, you can jolly well put them back where they came from until it arrives! I won't have cargo dumped all over my dock with no one to claim it."

"Bugger that, mate; that shit's heavy. We ain't carryin' it back to the ship just so's we can unload it all over again. The wagon'll be here."

The harbormaster began to turn an unappealing shade of scarlet, and Bill suspected this was not going to be a quickly resolved issue. "Beg your pardon, sir," he said to the harbormaster, and gestured from the quill to himself. "If I may, seeing as you've got your hands full?" he offered politely.

"Go ahead, go ahead," the other man consented with an impatient wave of his hand, before hurrying along to the sailors and their barrels.

Bill turned the ledger towards himself and penned neatly across the page _William Yorrick. _Replacing the quill, he examined the drying signature, and allowed himself a shell of a smile.

Who would have thought that after everything, he'd still have a sense of humor?

He shouldered his pack one more, and continued on his way.

TBC 


	6. chapter five

See part one for disclaimers.

……………………………

Will walked the route to the Swann mansion in that ground-devouring pace generally adopted by people when they really want to run, but are attempting to be discreet. The quietly amused smiles he drew from the people he hurried past, though, suggested that even if he wasn't fooling anyone, they were at least misinterpreting his haste for the eagerness of a man in love to meet with his sweetheart.

Will returned their smiles pleasantly, even as he felt anxious sweat trickle down between his shoulder blades. _Right underneath the sign on my back that reads "harboring a pirate – ask me where." Good God, has this walk _always_ been so bloody long?_

He'd left Jack sequestered in his rooms at the forge after wringing a promise to stay put out of the pirate. Jack hadn't sulked nearly enough to convince Will he was truly going to behave himself, and Will was near frantic with the growing certainty that he'd return to the shop to find it either burned down or filled wall-to-wall with soldiers.

Granted, there was no real reason to fear discovery (or incineration) as long as Jack didn't venture out of Will's quarters into the forge below. It had been a month since Brown had bothered to pull himself out of the bottle long enough to come to work; Will wasn't laying money on that pattern breaking any time soon. And anyone who came 'round to talk business would be deterred by the "back in one hour" sign on the shop door. Just because trouble _seemed_ to find Jack Sparrow faster and more certainly than a needle finds north didn't mean he couldn't keep himself out of it for the time it took Will to return with Elizabeth. Jack would be fine where he was for the brief while Will intended to be away. No reason to think otherwise.

Of course, where he was happened to be directly above a room full of sharp objects and open flame.

Will walked faster.

He managed to avoid a dead run through the gate of the Swanns' house, took the steps two at a time, and had a wave of delighted relief wash over him when Elizabeth herself opened the front door, evidently having seen him coming. She'd hear it from her father for that, no doubt. Or maybe not; Wetherby Swann seemed to be learning to choose his battles when it came to Elizabeth's interpretation of decorum.

"Well good morning, Will!" Elizabeth greeted, stepping out. "I would have expected to you to be up to your ears in work at this hour. What a lovely surprise."

"You don't know the half of it, darling," Will replied in a lower voice, grabbing her hands.

The pleasure in her warm eyes turned to something approaching alarm at his tone. "What's wrong?" she asked quietly, urgently.

"Not so much as wrong as…interesting."

"My-what-a-good-book interesting, or bring-a-shovel-and-don't-ask-any-questions interesting?"

Will considered. "Familiarize me with where on your scale Jack being in town to celebrate our engagement would fall."

Elizabeth blinked several times. "It wouldn't so much fall as plummet screaming out of the sky, into the middle of the scale and out the other side."

"I see."

Her eyes widened. "Am I sensing this is not a what-if scenario?"

"One of the things I love most about you, Elizabeth, is your perceptiveness."

Elizabeth slumped back against the door, her hand at her throat. "Good Lord, is he out of his mind?" Will opened his mouth, and she shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Don't. Stupid question." She stared at him over her hand, brown eyes enormous as she absorbed the news, and after a moment a little laugh bubbled up out of her. "Jack's _here_. Right now."

Will nodded. "Back in my rooms at the forge, actually."

"Alone?" Elizabeth asked, in a tone that reminded Will uncomfortably of Governor Swann's.

"He promised to stay put."

"Did you get that signed in blood, or did you two just pinky swear?" Elizabeth waggled her little finger at him, and struggled not to giggle under his glare. "All right, all right, I'm sorry. Let's just get back there quickly, shall we?"

It sounded like a wonderful idea to Will, and was no doubt exactly what they would have done, had the door Elizabeth still happened to be leaning on not swung inward at that very second, extracting a startled yelp out of her and very nearly depositing her on her rear end at her father's feet. There was a bit of a bad moment as the three of them attempted to get her ankles back down where they should have been, and she and Will wondered frantically at each other just how sharp the governor's hearing was today.

"Elizabeth? Good heavens, my dear, what on earth are you doing? Oh, hello there, William."

That was Wetherby Swann. Gracious and courteous even in the face of his daughter's knickers.

"Sorry, Father," Elizabeth said, righting herself with as much dignity as possible. "Will and I were just…having a little talk."

"Well why not invite the young man inside and converse like normal people do, Elizabeth?" Swann suggested, catching Will's eye and shaking his head with a long-suffering smile. "It's positively stifling out here. You're both looking rather flushed."

"Oh, it isn't so bad yet," Elizabeth dismissed.

"In any event, this is excellent timing, simply excellent," the governor carried on, taking friendly hold of Will and Elizabeth's arms and ushering them inside, oblivious to the looks of quiet panic they exchanged under his nose. "I've been wanting to speak to the two of you about some of the work being done on the house. William, you have time in your busy schedule for a cup of tea and some discussion on your future home, don't you?"

"Well, actually, sir--"

"Splendid! Estrella, be a dear and put the kettle on, will you?"

Will swallowed dryly as the governor swung the door shut behind them, and put what he hoped was a pleasant expression on his face, though it felt like it was being held on with mortar.

If at the end of the day he and Elizabeth were the only ones who'd spent time detained in the custody of the governor, he'd go gratefully to his engagement masque dressed to do the dance of the seven veils. God could quote him on it.

……………………………………

Jack sighed heavily from his perch on Will's worktable. He'd done his fair share of talking himself out of awkward spots, but this one made the books.

"You know, mate, it occurs to me that you and I…well, we got off on the wrong foot when I was here last. I'm sure you're none too happy to have me hanging around now. Perfectly understandable, that is. In your place I don't expect I'd be happy to find me here, either. If it's any consolation to you, I shall only be in town for a little while. But as I _am_ here, the thing of it is, mate, I think perhaps we ought to let bygones be bygones. Start fresh, savvy? I'm man enough to admit my conduct when last we crossed paths was rather despicable. In my defense, I was having a very bad day. I'm not excusing, mind, just explaining. Still…it was a sour note to start out on, and I'd be much obliged if we could move past it."

The donkey paused in his chewing, one large ear flicking around as he stared at the pirate but otherwise gave no response.

"Quite sorry I singed you on your bum, is what I'm getting at, mate," Jack continued, swinging one foot rhythmically against the table leg.

The ear flicked back in the other direction, and the rest of the donkey turned around after it.

Jack cocked his head to the side, crossing his arms, eyes narrowed critically. "The hair's grown back quite nicely, you know. If you didn't know where to look, I don't think you'd even notice."

The donkey swished his tail, and seemed to decide that Jack without a poker in his hand didn't warrant any further attention.

Jack leaned back on his hands, sucking his cheek between his teeth and casting an appraising glance around the quiet forge. _Smells like brimstone and barnyard in here. I wonder if Barbossa's corner of hell smells like this._

That thought tickled him enough to set him chuckling for a minute or two straight, stifling the mirth against the back of his hand when he caught sight of the shapes of people outside passing close by the forge.

Not that it mattered much to Jack where the evil old cur had ended up after his body had gone cold. Barbossa's shadow had darkened his thoughts for ten years; now that he was free of it, Jack certainly wasn't going to waste energy dreaming up torments for a dead man. Whatever karma Barbossa was currently reaping, Jack preferred to leave him to it.

That being said, the idea of eternal justice reeking of soot and donkey wasn't entirely unfunny.

……………………………………

The hunt would take longer if the _Pearl's_ captive crewmen didn't know where to find Barbossa.

The possibility didn't please him, but if it came to pass, it would only be a setback. It would take as long as it took, be it a month, a year, a decade. He existed now for one purpose, one end. He would see Hector Barbossa dead. The time required to bring that end about was irrelevant. There was nothing beyond it or apart from it for him to neglect.

What purpose was there for an arrow, but to strike the target?

Bill Turner sat on the bed in his rented room, head bowed, his cutlass across his lap. The fingers of his right hand rested feather-light on the hilt, his left, on the flat of the blade near the tip. The noontime sun spilled bright and hot through the window, bathing him in its warmth and light.

He had never felt colder. Not even in the suffocating depths of the sea, when water that had never seen sunlight surrounded and filled him.

In the first days after the breaking of the curse, he had wondered why the ocean had bothered to release him at all. He had agonized over it for long hours; how much better it would have been if he'd still been bound beneath the waves when Will's blood was spilled. His heart wouldn't even have had the chance to beat before the sea bore down on him, and there would have been no time to mourn his son's murder. It would have been better. It would have been peace.

That was probably why he'd been denied it.

He could have delivered himself to death, of course, as it refused to come and claim him. But just as he had accepted the curse's grip as punishment, so Bill submitted to this new sentence. He wasn't allowed to die yet? So be it.

But he'd been restored to an empty life, and something was going to fill that void. He would suffer his time in the world, however long that would be, but he wouldn't be suffering alone.

_Oh, no. Not alone._

Bill slid off the bed, sinking to his knees, the cutlass' tip pressed into the floor, hands clasping it white-knuckled around the hilt, his forehead pressed to his hands.

"There is no forgiveness for what I'm about to do," he said, voice quiet and rough. "I'll beg for it anyway, now. While there's enough of me left to be ashamed of what I'm becoming."

"_But I don't _want_ you to go, Papa!"_

"_Please, Bill. Don't do anything stupid."_

He shut his eyes tighter, but couldn't restrain his tears. His grip on the cutlass clenched, became crushing, but he couldn't still the shaking of his shoulders.

"Please, boys," he rasped breathlessly. "Please don't watch me now. Don't watch me now. Don't watch me."

The words filled the room, filled his ears, until his own was the only voice he heard, deafening him to any others.

…………………………………

A cup of tea and some discussion, it turned out, entailed a forty-minute conversation on roofing materials and household staff references, followed by an hour-long touring of the property being renovated to house the future Mr. and Mrs. Turner, who were nearly to the point of gnawing off a limb each to escape by the end.

Elizabeth might have faked a fainting spell to get them out of there if she thought she'd get away with it. Her father, however, had learned she was made of stronger stuff back when she'd last pulled that stunt, buying Will a second's grace to throw a well-placed sword.

Presently, William of the unerring aim was staring into space looking slightly nauseous and biting nervously at his thumbnail from his position behind the governor's back. Elizabeth reached out smoothly and drew down his hand, clasping it between her own.

Leaning close, Elizabeth said quietly, "Relax, Will, I think we're nearly done here." They followed a few steps behind Swann as he swung open the door to yet another room, stepped through beaming, and uttered the words that would have been the signal to evacuate even if there was no Jack waiting in hiding for them.

"And this room would be perfect for the nursery, don't you agree?"

Elizabeth walked into the wall.

"You could fit three or four little beds in here, easily," the governor continued. "Girls on one side, boys on the other?"

She clutched her throbbing elbow and attempted not to use the f-word loudly and repeatedly while the pretty multicolored spots in her vision went away.

"Good Lord, Elizabeth, are you all right?" Will was hugging her around the shoulders, and brought one hand up to gently touch her forehead where it had met the doorjamb.

Governor Swann had apparently not noticed his daughter leaving an eyebrow-shaped dent in the molding, because the verbal furnishing and decorating of the would-be nursery continued.

She had to get them out of there before he started naming his imaginary grandchildren.

"That reminds me, Will. Did I tell you about the book I've been reading on conception methods?"

The last time she'd drawn such mortified and undivided attention to herself had been when she'd stood on the deck of the _Black Pearl_ and threatened to drop her medallion into the sea before the eyes of Barbossa and all his crew. She'd felt slightly less exposed and terrified with the homicidal undead pirates, though.

Will opened his mouth, but made several false starts before actually convincing his larynx to work with him. "I…I don't…"

"Well," Swann broke in, squeakily, and cleared his throat. "Well, I think perhaps that's enough future planning for one day. That's, ah, why it's the future, after all, isn't it? Mustn't forget to live in the here and now. These things will work themselves out in due time." He drew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped at his brow. "William, shall we expect you at dinner tonight?"

……………………………

"I think we should take Market Street; it'll be quicker." Elizabeth abruptly changed her course as she spoke, drawing Will along by his hand.

"_Elizabeth_!"

"Yes?"

"I can't believe you _said_ that!" Apparently Will's faith in his own ears hadn't improved since the third time he'd made this same exclamation.

"Neither can I, but it got us out of there, didn't it?"

"It'll be weeks before I can stand to look your father in the eye again."

"I suppose the masks will end up being a good thing then, won't they?"

Will frowned in annoyance. "You're taking entirely too much enjoyment out of this."

"Oh yes, what a bloody laugh riot that was. I'm sorry, Will, next time you can be the one to humiliate yourself before witnesses to slip us out of a tight spot." She glared until his frown smoothed out and the ghost of a smile tugged at his mouth. "That's more like it," she said, appeased.

"Never let it be said you won't do what needs doing, Elizabeth Swann," Will marveled. "Come on, let's cut through here."

They wove between buildings, moving at a jog, and emerged onto the street across from the forge. Will let them in, casting sharp eyes around for unexpected visitors as they entered, and closed the door behind them.

"Well, he hasn't drawn the navy down on the place," Elizabeth observed. "That's a good sign."

"Assuming he stayed here even ten bloody seconds after I left," Will muttered, moving to the back entrance and making sure no one was poking around behind the shop.

"I beg your pardon, whelp, but you sound suspiciously like you doubted my word." Jack appeared at the bottom of the narrow staircase from Will's rooms, arms crossed, leaning against the edge of the doorway. "Did I not say I'd stay here until you and your bonny lass returned? And here I stand, even if you did take a bloody eternity getting back. Of course, it did give me the opportunity to make amends with your donkey."

"We'll all sleep better for that tonight, I'm sure. My apologies for keeping you waiting, _Captain_," Will shot back. "We were held up. You can thank Elizabeth and her bottomless nerve for getting us here."

"Elizabeth, my most sincere gratitude for your nerve and your bottom." Jack said, pressing his hands together and bowing in her direction. He barely had time to straighten before her weight hit him.

"You _idiot_!" Elizabeth cried, flinging her arms around Jack's neck, both of them laughing wildly as he spun her off her feet. "I can't believe you actually came here! Of all the foolish, reckless, crazy--"

"Careful with the sweet talking in front of your betrothed, luv," Jack broke in. "He might start to suspect something."

"What are you _doing_ here?" Elizabeth exclaimed, repositioning her arm around his waist when he set her down. "Did you really come just for our party?"

Jack grinned. "Well, that was the story I fed young Turner there, but truthfully I've come to kidnap you and make you my cabin girl before you make the paramount error of binding yourself into wedded servitude."

Will snorted. "Clearly you misunderstand who wears the pants in this relationship, Jack," he laughed.

Jack nodded his head in Will's direction. "Watch out for him, 'Lizbeth. I think he's planning to make a play for your pants."

Elizabeth slapped him, but it wasn't very hard, and she kissed his cheek right after. "So how exactly were you planning to infiltrate this party, Jack? Which incidentally, both my father and Commodore Norrington will be in attendance at."

"Interestingly enough, Lizzie, seeing as how we were just on the subject of your pants--" this time he intercepted her hand before it made contact – "I shall require the use of some clothing in your possession."

Elizabeth glanced at Will, who shook his head. "Oh, no. I'm not asking."

Stepping away from Jack to face him squarely, Elizabeth crossed her arms and gave him a dead serious once-over. "All right," she ceded after a moment. "But if you look prettier than me, you can't come."

Jack pressed both hands to his heart. "I make no promises on that front, luv."

………………………………

That evening, several hours after dinner (which Will, to the surprise of absolutely no one, had passed on), Elizabeth stood on tiptoe before her wardrobe. She was barefoot and in her dressing gown, attempting to fill the time while Estrella drew her bath, since the maid had chased her off for trying to help with the water. It was an old argument, and one of few that Elizabeth had never been able to strong-arm, sweet-talk, or negotiate her way to winning.

Biting her lip, Elizabeth stood as tall as she could and stretched her arm until she felt the folded cloth pushed to the very back of the topmost shelf in the wardrobe. Catching it between the tips of her fingers, she uttered a small grunt of triumph when she pulled the fabric down.

She stepped back and shook out the cardinal red soldier's coat. She couldn't have told anyone why she'd chosen to keep it when they'd come back from la Muerta those many months ago, only that the thought of throwing it away had, at the time, twisted a knot in her stomach. That morning, having walked away from Will to fulfill her promise to James Norrington, knowing Jack awaited execution, she had taken the coat off and, blind with tears, folded it carefully, tucked it away.

It was the only time during the whole ordeal begun by Barbossa's attack on her town that she had cried.

Elizabeth raised the coat to her face and drew a deep breath. The scents of saltwater and sweat and gunpowder clung to it, faintly, and with them the ghosts of near-misses and averted tragedies.

Maybe it had been good luck, this coat; some sort of armor against misfortune.

She liked that idea. Especially considering that its next task would be to hide a pirate in plain sight.

TBC


	7. chapter six

Allrighty then, guys. Hey, check me out: two updates in the same month. With the date still in the single-digits, even! Mark your calendars, I could be making history.

First of all, my big ol' thank you to everybody who's given me feedback. (And I posted my last chapter without a thank you section – shame on me.) I know I didn't get all of you e-mailed back with individual thanks for your reviews, and that's something I try to do, 'cause I certainly appreciate it when people take the time to drop me a few words about my work. So again, to the people I haven't mailed back, and even to the ones I have – thanks, guys.

Disclaimers are, of course, the same. I own nobody. None of them. Not a one.

…………………………………………

"_I understand you wanted to see me…Captain."_

_Barbossa didn't like the way Bootstrap said the word, like it was some private joke. Like Turner was mocking him. _

"_Pull up a chair, Bootstrap."_

_Turner seated himself, his tall form slouched casually in the chair, one foot hooked across the opposite knee, hands folded on his stomach. He regarded Barbossa with an expression of patient interest that was unsettling. Anyone else on board would have been anything from uncomfortably anxious to terrified spitless when called before him. Bootstrap looked like he could sit there all day and not so much as twitch._

"_This is quite the dilemma we have before us, mate," Barbossa said heavily, reaching into his vest pocket and removing the three Aztec coins he'd had there; the latest bunch recovered. There were dark, crusted stains on them; the bangtail Ragetti had found them in the possession of had been somewhat unwilling to part with them. Her thumbs had made the return trip along with the coins in the one-eyed pirate's purse. Barbossa laid the gold down on the table, one ragged nail tapping pensively. "Bit like chasing leaves in the wind, ain't it?"_

"_Something to be said for saving back for a rainy day," Bill commented, the corner of his mouth curling up._

_Barbossa chuckled, dry and low in his throat. "You're a funny man, Bootstrap."_

"_Aye, well, you've got to be able to laugh in the face of adversity, don't you?" _

"_It has been brought to my attention, Bootstrap, that while we're laboring away trying to track these venomous little beauties down, we haven't heard from you yet as to the number and last known whereabouts of your coins." Jaundiced blue eyes fixed Turner with a stiletto-blade look. "It would be quite helpful if we had a starting point for our searching."_

_Turner scratched his throat thoughtfully. "No doubt."_

_Barbossa laid both hands on the table, leaning forward. "Where'd you spend it at, Bootstrap?"_

"_Fact of the matter is, Captain Barbossa, I didn't spend it."_

_Grey eyebrows lifted in surprise. "Your share's still here?"_

"_Never took full share." There was something in Turner's eyes Barbossa didn't like._

"_All right. How much _did_ you take?" _

"_Very little, _Captain_." He spit the word this time, like it tasted bad. _

_Barbossa was growing impatient. "But you never spent it," he growled, gnarled fingers wrapping around the arms of his chair. "It's still here."_

"_I never spent it. But I never said it was still here."_

_Barbossa's hands clenched involuntarily on the wood of the chair. On its little metal swing at the front of the room, his monkey chattered belligerently._

"_Where's your gold, Bill Turner?"_

"_Can't help you with where it is. Only with where it isn't." Bootstrap's eyes flicked towards the monkey, and disgust pinched his face. "Wretched animal," he observed, and brought his gaze back to meet Barbossa's. "Vicious. Full of parasites."_

"_How many coins did you take, Bill Turner?" Barbossa demanded, rising up out of his chair._

"_Doesn't belong in here." Turner followed Barbossa's ascension with his eyes, but never moved a muscle. "In this cabin."_

"_Answer the question, Bootstrap. How many coins did you take?"_

"_Getting his filth all over everything--"_

"How many fucking coins did you take_?" Barbossa roared, lunging forward and slamming one fist down on the table, kicking over the chair behind him._

_Bill Turner smiled, smiled like he was still tasting the cream _and_ the canary, and Barbossa felt the closest thing to nausea his unfeeling body could manage._

"_One, Hector," Turner said. "Only one."_

……………………………………

The weight of the morning air promised heat to surpass the previous day's. The clouds were high, distant, almost the same shade of hazy blue as the rest of the sky. It was the sort of day that dragged down mind as well as body.

Which was unfortunate for Lieutenant Gillette, whose mind sometimes had trouble treading water on its best days. It wasn't so much that he lacked intelligence as it was that he tended towards a less active sort of thinking. He didn't subject his brain to a lot of heavy lifting. Show him white wool, and it would never occur to him to check for fur under the fleece.

With a bland, gentlemanly smile, Gillette opened the pasture gate and let the wolf in.

"Mr. Yorrick, is it?" he said, stepping out to join the man waiting in the courtyard of the fort. "Lieutenant Franklin Gillette. My man informed me you have questions about some of our prisoners."

"That's correct, sir," Bill Turner replied, removing his hat. "I've come on behalf of a friend of mine. He's ill, or he would have come himself. Some years ago he lost most of his kin in a raid on his town."

Gillette gave a sympathetic shake of his head. "Terrible business."

"Aye, sir, that it was. But not long ago, news reached his ear that some of those involved in that raid had been captured. The ship responsible, sir, was the _Black Pearl_."

Gillette nodded. "I'm pleased to tell you that your friend was correctly informed, Mr. Yorrick. We took a great number of that ship's crew into custody."

"And…have they all been put to death?"

"Most of them have, yes. A small few still await the noose in our prison here."

Bill drew a slow breath, and his response came on a sigh. "That news is most welcome."

Gillette laid a hand on his shoulder. "You can assure your friend that justice has been done for his family."

_Not quite yet, lad, but soon now. _"But are they well-guarded, sir? No chance of them escaping?"

"Most definitely not!" Gillette replied sharply, defensively. "Those that remain _will_ make the walk to the gallows without incident, I promise you."

Bill ducked his head abashedly. "Forgive me, sir. It's only…just the _thought_ of these men somehow slipping away after what they've done…" he turned away, leaning on one hand against the stone wall, head hanging.

"Put it from your mind, Mr. Yorrick," Gillette said firmly. "Those captives are under armed guard day and night. They're even kept in a separate corridor from the other prisoners."

Bill's head lifted, eyes burning, and he did not turn back to Gillette. "Separate, you say," he replied, quietly. Very quietly. "With their own guards, as well, aye?"

There was the barest moment of hesitation from the other man, and Bill closed his eyes, willing the apprehension back into them before he faced Gillette_. Come now, king's soldier. Reassure a poor ignorant sailor. Rattle your saber for us a bit. _

"The pirates are, of course, assigned their own guards, Mr. Yorrick. They are quite secure." Gillette grinned a bit then, and leaned in close. "Between us, Mr. Yorrick, more secure than they need to be. This bunch that's left…they're the sort that can't manage to wipe their backsides without orders and instructions."

Bill nodded. _That sort has its uses, Lieutenant Franklin Gillette. _"That's very comforting, sir. I must thank you again for your time. The information has been…invaluable."

"Not at all, Mr. Yorrick, not at all. I hope your friend finds some measure of peace from this." He extended his hand, and Bill grasped it firmly.

"I'm sure he will, sir."

………………………………

A separate corridor. A separate corridor with their own guards. Away from the other prisoners.

_The other prisoners…the other cells…what would draw the guards to the other cells?_

_How many are on each corridor? They won't all go…someone will stay. Someone will stay on that corridor…_

_How many would go? How many guards would they leave watching the crew? Maybe just one, if the disturbance was big enough. One, to keep an eye on men already under lock and key. It would only take one. _

_Only one. One would be enough._

One guard. One coin. One shot.

One shot to make it stop when he couldn't take any more. That had been Barbossa's mercy: one shot.

One survivor. Only one. _One left alive, curled in an empty crate in the galley. The rest of them had been butchered, and there was just this one skinny stowaway left, walking on legs shaky with hunger and shock and days of disuse, leaning heavily on Bill, who held him around the shoulders, shielding Jack's eyes with his hand when they emerged above decks and the daylight made the lad whimper and flinch._

"_You found 'im, Turner_," _Bill's captain said briskly, with a doubtful look at the discovery, "you take care of 'im."_

"_I will." Bill informed him, and chuckled when a voice, no less indignant for its weakness, grumbled at them both._

_"'m not a fucking puppy, y'know."_

"_Could've fooled me, lad. You bite like a bloody bulldog."_

One week. One week before Jack slept at night, after that.

"_Mind if I keep watch with you, mate?"_

_A small smile, a jerk of his head, inviting Jack to lean against the rail with him_.

"_Why aren't you asleep, lad?"_

_Dark eyes stared out at darker water. "Not tired."_

_"Yes you are."_

_Jack just rested his chin on his folded arms._

"_You can close your eyes for a bit, if you'd like. I'm right here."_

_For that he earned a gaze that was partly amused and partly annoyed. "What, you goin' to keep the monsters away, Bill?"_

"_Yes. I am." Soft and serious, and Jack didn't look amused or annoyed then._

One cry, one call in the dark, was all it had ever taken to rouse Bill from sleep when Will had a nightmare. Only one.

"_Papa!" Wide eyes and a quivering chin in the lanternlight._

"_Papa's here, Will_." _Bill's large hand ruffled the little boy's hair, and he sat down on the edge of Will's narrow bed. "What's got my brave lad so frightened?"_

_"It's back, Papa," and this in a loud whisper._

_Bill leaned over, his forehead almost touching Will's. "What's back?" he whispered, just as loudly._

_Will swallowed, and pointed over the edge of the bed._

"_Ohhh," Bill nodded knowingly. "Here. You hold this." He handed the lantern to the boy, and went to the corner to fetch their wooden training swords. "One for you," he placed the wooden hilt in the lad's hand, putting the lantern on the bedside table, "and one for me." He hefted his own weapon. "Now then, Will, if that nasty bugger should slip by me, you be ready for him, all right?"_

_Eyes growing bigger by the moment, Will nodded, determination beginning to replace fear. _

_Bill slyly narrowed his eyes. "That's my lad. All right." Wooden sword in hand, Bill stretched out on his stomach across Will's bed, head and shoulders dangling over the side. Yanking up the edge of the patchwork quilt, Bill growled fiercely, "Any trolls under this bed have to the count of three to remove yourselves, then Will and I are whooping seven kinds of hell out of you, you hear?"_

_Will giggled then, nervously._

"_One."_

_Will perched on his knees, pushing his pillow out of the way, and adjusted his grip._

"_Two." Bill glanced awkwardly back up at his son, raising his eyebrows expectantly. Will nodded._

"_Three!" Feet kicking up in the air, Bill launched himself over the side of the bed, twisting around and crawling under it. Various fearsome grumblings issued forth, and then came the clunking sound of a wooden blade jabbing at shadows, cobwebs, and what might have been a hairball from Cathleen's cat._

_Will peered over the edge, giggling a bit louder now, but still holding his sword at the ready, just in case._

_After a couple minutes of this, Bill emerged, sat on the floor with his legs still under the bed, and sneezed._

"_Lots of dust, Will," he reported, sniffling. "But no trolls. You didn't see any running away, did you?"_

_Biting his lip to stifle a grin, Will shook his head._

"_Good, good. You think we scared 'em away for keeps last time?"_

"_Maybe _you_ did, Papa. They aren't scared of me."_

"_Oh, they should be, if they know what's good for 'em!"_

_Will shrugged. "Maybe someday."_

_Chuckling, Bill laid aside the wooden sword and climbed out to sit on the bed again. "'Til then your old man can give you a hand, right?"_

_The rumpled dark head nodded enthusiastically. "Right!"_

One year. Within the space of one year, he'd made the same promise to both of them: he would keep the nightmares, real _and_ imaginary, at bay. He had sat beside each of them, watching as they gave themselves over to sleep, taking him at his word.

Now Bill would deal with the monsters, as he'd promised. Neither of his boys would be able to sleep until he'd taken care of the monsters.

"It'll be all right, lads," Bill spoke aloud without realizing he did so, murmuring low and soft; a voice that had soothed fears, once upon a time. "It'll be all right. Papa's here now."

…………………………………

Jack fumbled with the sweeping brim of the hat on his head, trying to tug it into a position that cast shadow over his face without falling completely over his eyes. "Still don't see why I couldn't have worn me own hat," he grumbled to his companion.

"Because the point was to make you look less like you," Will reminded him in a low voice.

"And more like a bloody mouse under a doily?" Jack retorted.

Will gave him an annoyed glance. "It's not that big, Jack. Besides, _you're_ the one who wanted to come with me."

"Yes, well, _one_ day of stimulating conversation with your donkey was quite enough, thanks ever so."

"I'm sure he agrees," Will muttered.

"What was that?" Jack demanded.

Will shook his head. "I didn't say anything."

"You did so."

"No, I didn't!"

"Did." Jack stuck his foot out sideways, and Will stumbled over it, then reached over and brought a hand up behind the pirate's head, knocking the hat down over Jack's face in front. "Will, I am going to beat you stupid when we get back to the forge, I swear." He grabbed the hat in both hands and righted it. A second later it was slapped down in front again. "_Stop_ that!" he growled out through gritted teeth.

"Shh!" Will scolded, trying not to laugh. "Keep your voice down. We're going to get caught."

Jack glared, adjusting the hat once more. "Bratty bleedin' whelp."

They wove their way through the morning crowds as they crossed the docks. Will was actually grateful for the number of people around them; the thicker the crowd, the less attention people paid to individuals. Will had some supplies for the forge coming in, and Jack had convinced the younger man to let him tag along, on the condition Jack dress himself in some of Will's clothes and not do anything that would get them both arrested. Jack had actually voiced more adamant complaints about the first stipulation, agreeing only when Will promised he wouldn't have to wear anything that had a feather on it. "Fine for you if you fancy dressin' like Barbossa's younger sister, but don't be coming at me with any of that, William," had been his exact words on the matter.

A little while later, Jack suitably, if unhappily, disguised in some of Will's work clothes and a substantial amount of hat, they'd been seated in Will's cart, drawn by a horse borrowed from a neighbor craftsman, who got the mare shoed for free in return for allowing Will her services on the occasional errand. They had arrived at the docks before the ship carrying Will's cargo had unloaded, and so had decided to do some wandering while they waited. "Decided" meaning that Jack had taken off on foot in a random direction, leaving Will the choice of going along or standing with the cart and horse like a useless dolt.

"What exactly are you looking for?" Will asked the pirate as they moved along the waterfront.

"I'm not looking _for_ anything, whelp," Jack informed him, wearing that small, mildly infuriating smile. "Don't you ever just look? Observe? Take it all in?"

"I rarely have time. I'm too busy doing to bother with looking."

"_That_ is the single most tragic thing I've heard you say since I got here, Will." Jack turned around, walking backwards so he could face Will as he spoke, though the presence of the borrowed hat meant that he had to tip his chin back quite a way to manage the desired eye contact. "And considering some of the pessimistic, melancholy utterances you've made me party to, that's a weighty statement."

"I'm not pessimistic or melancholy." Will argued.

Jack snorted.

"What? I'm not!"

"Oh, yes, you're a bouncing ball of undiluted sunshine. You know, you and Anamaria would probably get on splendidly, except I'd be afraid the two of you in close vicinity would plunge the entire Caribbean into an eternal rainy season." Will opened his mouth, undoubtedly to protest again, but Jack plunged on. "As I was saying, you need to stop occasionally, Will."

"Stop what?"

"Just stop. Stop doing _things_, all those busy tedious time-chewing things, and relax. Be idle. For five bloody minutes now and then, be idle, and watch the world move. It _will_ let you back on, you know."

"Yes, but how much faster do you have to move to catch up once it has?" Will pointed out.

"You haven't learned yet, William," Jack said, shaking his head. "The trick is to make the world dance to your lead."

Will grinned. "Easy as that, is it?"

"Yes, it is, if you let it be. It's making it complicated that takes work."

"You must run an interesting ship, Captain Sparrow."

"You'd be impressed." Jack paused then, and pressed a finger to his lips thoughtfully, before wagging it in Will's direction. "There's a thought."

Will rolled his eyes. "Oh, God, another one?"

"Shut up." There was inspiration in Jack's eyes, and Will knew enough to be afraid. "I should. It'd be for your own good."

"Whatever you're thinking, stop thinking it." Will ordered.

Jack pouted. "Fine, but first you have to let me say it. Once I've said it, I'll stop thinking about it."

"That explains a lot." Noting Jack's expression, Will threw his hands up. "Fine. Tell me your idea, Jack." Similar words had probably preceded the destruction of Atlantis.

"I should kidnap you and Elizabeth after your wedding. A month on my _Pearl_ and neither one of you would ever want to come back." Jack's self-assured smile faded a bit at the look on his friend's face. "What?"

Will blinked startled eyes slowly, recalling his thoughts the previous morning. "I'm just thinking that I need to be careful what I wish for." Glancing back the way they'd come, he stopped. "It looks like they're unloading. We need to get back."

Jack crossed his arms and stared hard at Will, who heaved a huge sigh.

"I _want_ to get back, and get my things. Better?"

"Marginally." He fell into step at Will's side. "So what've you got coming in? Smuggled weapons? Stolen jewels? Scantily-clad harem girls?"

"Harem girls, yes. I thought they'd make a nice wedding present for Elizabeth."

"You know, Will, pleased as I am to see you honing your sarcasm to as fine an edge as the rest of your weapons, what say you point it in another direction?" Jack suggested, but his eyes glittered with amusement.

Collecting Will's cargo took a while longer than Jack possessed the patience to stand still for, so while the younger man was seeing to his business, Jack drifted off in another direction, though not far. He smiled at and spoke to nearly every person he passed, tipping the irritating hat at the women, and coming eventually to a familiar sight: the harbormaster's high desk.

Lips quirking in mischievous nostalgia, Jack threw a cautious glance over his shoulder at Will, who was still busy.

There was no sign of the harbormaster at the podium or anywhere nearby. There was also, to Jack's disappointment, no sign of the harbormaster's purse, but he supposed the silly bugger had learned to hang on to it after the last time it had been stolen. All that remained was the docking log.

Well, the docking log and a couple of quills.

He shouldn't. Will would be pissed, and besides, it was _beyond_ immature.

Jack had gotten as much as "_for a good time, look up_" written down when Will materialized behind him and grabbed him by the elbow, making Jack jump a foot and sending the log book to the ground.

"What in the name of God are you _doing_?" Will hissed, livid and horrified.

"Jesus, Will, don't sneak up on a man like that!" Jack groaned.

"Put it back. Put it back. Put it back and stop touching things."

Jack rolled his eyes and gathered the book up, setting it back as he'd found it.

"Jack. Get that out of there," Will said tightly, indicating the not-yet-dry ink of Jack's handiwork.

"Why would I have bothered writing it if it I were going to take it out?"

"_Quickly!_" Will added, tightening his fingers frantically on Jack's arm, and reaching past the pirate to rip out the vandalized page, bringing several others along with it in his haste. "Do something with this," Will said under his breath, shoving the sheets into Jack's hands and hauling the other man bodily towards the loaded and waiting cart.

Jack stuffed the pages into his jacket pocket as he climbed into the seat. "That was a bit of an overreaction, don't you think, William? Not like I was going to put Elizabeth's name in there."

Will ignored that. He flicked the reins and got them moving, taking a deep breath as he glanced around to see if the commotion they'd made had been noticed, but there was no one pointing or shouting as of yet. As far as Will was concerned, a lack of pointing and shouting was always reassuring when Jack was involved.

Turning incredulously towards the pirate, Will opened his mouth to ask Jack if he'd ever been dropped on his head as a child, and was quite astonished to instead hear the words, "Whose name were you going to write?" come out of his mouth.

Leaning back in the seat and propping one foot up in front of him, Jack tipped the hat down to lie across his face. "Norrington's."

Will stared. And then he started to laugh.

……………………………………

Elizabeth was waiting for them when they arrived back at the shop.

"Out on the town today, gentlemen?" she asked, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at Will.

"Oh, you know, darling. Morning errands, trip to the docks, defacing other people's property…"

"Technically, it's my property that's been defaced," Jack spoke up, tossing the hat onto a table with a flick of his wrist and tugging his hair free of its ponytail. "Seeing as how I'm the one currently in possession of it."

"Yes," Will agreed, "because you stole it. It was someone else's while you were defacing it."

"Well, certainly, if you want to see just how thin you can split the hair…"

"Do you know what would be nice?" Elizabeth interjected, smiling pleasantly. "If you actually made it to the party you snuck into town to attend without getting shot. Wouldn't that be lovely, Jack?"

"Don't you worry your pretty head about me, Lizzie-love," Jack said, breezing by her and tapping the tip of her nose as he went. Then suddenly he pulled up short, leaning in close to her. "You have something on your forehead, did you know?"

Elizabeth raised a self-conscious hand to the mark, her jaw set. "Yes, it's a bruise. I…bumped the wall yesterday."

"Ah." Jack scrutinized her brow a moment longer, then shrugged. "Well, it'll be under a mask." He dropped with boneless grace into a chair in the corner. "Anyway, as I was saying…I haven't come all this way and gone to all this trouble to miss the festivities by getting meself into hot water."

"Oh!" Elizabeth said brightly, pushing off from the table she'd been leaning against. "Funny you should mention hot water, Jack. I finished your coat; it's upstairs in Will's room, and I made you a mask. But there _is_ one other thing we need to take care of before tonight."

"And what might that be, love?"

She picked up the bar of soap she'd brought from her house along with the coat, and tossed it to Jack.

"Your bath," she replied, her grin never faltering.

……………………………………

Bill cast his eyes around the street; one of Port Royal's less aesthetic. A far cry from what one would find on Tortuga, but Bill had a feeling it would have what he was shopping for. He sized up one dirty, heat-wilted face after another, until his attention was grabbed and held by a gaunt man in a once-white shirt, standing in a doorway, holding a flask in one hand and trying to pretend as if he wasn't watching Bill out of the corner of his eye.

Bill crossed the narrow street, making a straight, unhurried line to where the man hovered on a sagging stoop. As he approached, the other man stopped his sideways appraisal of Bill, turning away without moving away.

"Something about me that interests you?" he asked mildly, stopping just beside the man.

The other swung around as if just noticing Bill, and he shook his head. "Nah, mate," he replied, seemingly interested in everything _but_ Bill himself all of a sudden.

Bill nodded, looking away, down the street, as he reached into an inside pocket and withdrew his fingers with money glinting between them. "How about now?"

The man licked chapped lips. "Now you have my undivided attention, mate."

"Tell me, Mr. Smith, do you have any friends who might also be looking for employment?"

"My name ain't--"

Bill cocked his head to the side, a tiny frown creasing his brow, and the man stopped talking.

"As I was saying, Mr. Smith," Bill continued, "have you any friends?" The coins in his fingers grated as he rubbed them together.

"Yeah, sure, mate, Like how many friends?"

"One. And Mr. Smith, attempt to locate that one without inquiring through half the bloody town for somebody. We don't need a dozen men who've declined the offer familiar with its existence."

Swallowing dryly, the man nodded his understanding. "What exactly's gonna be involved in this 'employment', mate?"

Bill smiled, slipping his money away for the time being. "I need you to get arrested, Mr. Smith. Tonight."

**TBC**


	8. chapter seven

Well, my first posting of the new year. Finally. Sorry for the long wait, guys; between the holidays, the flu, and my love affair with the delete key where parts of this chapter were concerned, this was much longer coming together than I would have liked. (Then Rose threatened to poke me with sharp things, and I decided I'd better get my butt in gear.)

Thanks to everybody who keeps coming back, and to my new readers, too.

Disclaimers are the same; Disney and that nice Bruckheimer man own everything.

……………………………………….

Jack had not, despite what Elizabeth Swann may have reprimanded him for, "bitched like a pig-headed six-year-old" at the prospect of a quick bath. He had, quite understandably, responded with some resistance to being ordered to one by a pushy tyrant of a lass who offered, smirking, to douse him over the head with well water if the prospect of actually sitting in a tub was too foreign and frightening for him.

Jack had nothing against baths, but was of the opinion that there was a time and place for them. When playing the who-can-hold-their-breath-longer game whilst entertaining romantic company, for example. And sometimes they were useful, if there hadn't been a good soaking rain for a while. But making a habit out of them was just a waste of fresh water.

Elizabeth hadn't been won over by this particular argument. The set of her jaw had been alarmingly reminiscent of the expression worn during the burnt rum misfortune, and when it had been clear no help was forthcoming from Will, Jack had decided not to push his luck. That hadn't stopped him from voicing his thoughts on the matter, of course, though nothing short of a gag or unconsciousness ever really did.

Now, as he slid down and let the warm, sandalwood-scented water close over his head, Jack had to admit he might have made a bit more of a thing of it than was really called for. At least, he admitted it inside his own head. He'd chew glass before he'd say so to Elizabeth.

He was long since scrubbed, reclining with eyes closed as the water cooled from deliciously warm to pleasantly tepid, the toes of one foot curling contentedly on the rim of the tub, when Will's voice spoke up through the curtain that granted the washroom its meager privacy.

"You haven't fallen asleep and drowned in there, have you, Jack?"

"Yes," Jack answered languidly, without opening his eyes. "I've drowned. Now go away. I'm indecent."

"Truer words have never been spoken."

"Was it the 'go' or the 'away' that was hard comprehending, whelp?"

"Elizabeth says you have five minutes more, and then she's sending me in to haul you out by your ankles." There was a pause, and a muted exchange of words, and then Will amended, "Like a marlin."

"Shows what she knows. Marlins don't have ankles. And you may remind the young missy that she's the one who wanted me in here to begin with, so if I'm waterlogged to the point of immobility, she has only herself to blame."

From somewhere farther away, Elizabeth called out. "Jack, not even you could have that many layers that require scrubbing off. Get out before you sprout gills."

"Comments like that will not earn you extra dances tonight, Miss Swann." Jack chided. "And if you're so eager to have me out of here, love, why don't you come in and get me yourse--"

The divider curtain was flung aside, and Elizabeth came striding in, face serene.

"Bloody hell!" Jack yelped, startling, slipping, and choking a bit as he found out the sandalwood oil didn't taste near as nice as it smelled. Jack curled up beneath the water as best he could, pressing close to the side of the tub and glaring up at Elizabeth. "Get out!"

"You said I should come in." Elizabeth said simply.

From outside came the sort of laughter that suggested Will was no longer vertical.

"Oh, and now all of a sudden you do what I say you should? When did that tide turn?"

Elizabeth clasped her hands primly in front of her and tilted her head inquisitively to the side. "Will you be getting out now, Jack?"

"Right under your nose, love? I'm thinking not. Commendable effort, though."

"Don't flatter yourself. Out."

Jack rested his chin on the edge of the tub. "If you don't mind then, Elizabeth…"

"Actually, I don't mind. Not a bit. After all, you've seen me in my undergarments. Turnabout's fair play, Captain Sparrow."

Jack had to give her credit; she stood her ground right up until he got his feet underneath him, then she fled to the sound of his laughter, yanking the curtain back into place as she went.

………………………………..

"Insufferable," Elizabeth muttered under her breath.

"You did sort of dare him, my darling," Will reminded her gently, chuckling. "Brazen as you are, Elizabeth, he's worse."

Planting one hand on her hip, she faced him. "Was that an insult or a compliment, William Turner?" she demanded.

Will opened his mouth, then pursed his lips pensively.

"Don't answer that, Will," Jack advised from his side of the curtain.

"Jack, button your pants and keep quiet!"

"Ha! I've heard that from scarier women than you, Lizzie." Jack breezed into the room, clothed from the waist down as requested. He reached for the clean white linen shirt Will had provided and hung on a chair, and in the process, inadvertently gave Will and Elizabeth a good view of the mantle of slender scars, their number indiscernible, crossing his back from shoulder to hip, partly cloaked by his tangled black hair above, and by his pants below. Upon turning, Jack found himself staring into two pained faces. "What?"

Slightly shamefaced, neither of them could quite find their voices.

"Oh, that," Jack said, as if discussing a scuff on his shoe. He craned his neck, casting a quick glance over his shoulder, then grinned crookedly at Will and Elizabeth. "Impressive, aren't they? Would have served me well to keep a bit quieter while I was buttoning my pants _that_ day, I can tell you."

Elizabeth regained her composure first. "Those…they aren't from the mutiny?"

Tugging his shirt on, Jack shook his head. "No, Lizzie," he replied with a laugh. "Those are without a doubt the highest price I ever paid for the company of a young woman."

Horror yielded just a little to incredulity in Elizabeth's face. "How exactly does a pirate captain get himself flogged within an inch of his life over a prostitute?"

Jack raised an eyebrow, his eyes twinkling. "Who said anything about her being a prostitute? Shocking though the prospect may be to _you_, Miss Swann, not all ladies of high standing require circumstances as extreme as being marooned on a nameless island in the middle of nowhere in order to spend a night with Captain Jack. "

Embarrassed, Elizabeth dropped her eyes. "I'm sorry, Jack, that was…" Her hands worked at the air in front of her as she fumbled for a way to disentangle herself. "I shouldn't have…"

Jack let her squirm for a minute more before he granted her reprieve with a chuckle and a flip of his hand. "Elizabeth, take your foot out of your mouth before you swallow your shoe. Takes a sticking from longer and sharper thorns than that to wound me, love." Settling himself on a tabletop across from the two of them, Jack folded his legs beneath him and began the monumental task of working a comb through what hair he had that wasn't twined into braids or dreadlocks. "I was twenty-one years old, we had docked in Cartagena for supplies, and she was the daughter of a disgustingly rich Spanish merchant living there. I made her acquaintance on the beach, while she was taking her horse for a ride."

"What happened?" Will asked.

"We went back to her stable and she took me for a ride."

Will's jaw dropped, and Elizabeth guffawed. "Jack, you're vile."

Tenaciously attacking a particularly stubborn knot with the comb, Jack made a face that could have been inspired by either the grooming or the story. "Her father thought the same thing. Caught us coming down from the hayloft, all rumpled and sinful, and the day went a bit downhill from there."

The mirth drained out of Elizabeth's face as if washed away by icy water. "He did that to you over a bit of sport his daughter consented to?"

"That his daughter _initiated_, to be precise," Jack went on. "Though I probably ought not to have mentioned that to _him_. He might have stopped at fifteen lashes if I hadn't." Considering deeply for a moment, he continued, "probably shouldn't have corrected him when he started raving about me 'deflowering' her, either."

Will frowned. "Corrected him?"

"I think he's referring to previous…gardeners, Will," Elizabeth clarified quietly.

"Ah."

"Anyways, it was a lesson learned, for me," Jack said lightly. "When unmarried aristocratic Catholic girls are involved…it's best to skip the foreplay. I would have been well clear of the place _long_ before her father got home. "

Elizabeth buried her face in her hands, and Will rolled his eyes. "Well, as long as you came away from the experience wiser…" he observed wryly.

"O' course, the violent old prig got some education of his own," Jack added, giving up and tossing the comb aside. "First thing your father did, Will, after piecing me hide back together and tucking me in all drugged senseless and comfy, was burn both of that bloody bastard's cargo ships to ash in the harbor. As we heard it, all the crewmen got away with nothing worse than singed eyebrows, but it stripped a healthy bit o'the padding out of Senor Offended-Honor-with-a-Ruddy-Big-Bullwhip's pockets." Still grinning at the memory, Jack shrugged one shoulder. "Found the whole business rather amusing, once I could walk again. Most unfortunate part of it was that the daughter ended up getting shipped off to a convent not long after." His eyes grew mournful. "M'back healed after a couple of weeks, but that poor lass is probably still trapped inside a wimple somewhere."

Will shook his head, a bemused smile on his lips. "Trust you to have a humorous anecdote about getting flayed."

"I have an uncanny knack for locating the bright side of any situation," Jack replied, pressing his hands together in front of him.

"Except if you take his rum away. Then he cries like a bloody girl," Elizabeth added, smirking, drawing a snort from Will and prompting Jack to throw the work shirt he'd borrowed and discarded earlier at her head. She ducked and batted it away.

Will worried his lower lip, intrigue sparked in him by Jack's tale that he wasn't sure was altogether appropriate, considering. "So…the ships my father set fire to," he began haltingly – _I cannot believe the things that come out of my mouth in conversations with this man_ – "surely he didn't do that single-handedly?" His voice sounded overeager to his own ears; like a child begging a bedtime story. _Bad form, William. For Heaven's sake, think of what you're talking about!_

The bottomless, knowing look was back in Jack's eyes, the one that didn't just see but saw _through._

"Damn near, Will." There was an odd combination of sly pride and fond warmth in Jack's tone. "He took two of our crewmen with him to do the deed, but the figurin' beforehand was all his. Bloody clever plan it was, too."

"What did he do?" Elizabeth demanded, eyes alight, hands thoughtlessly crushing the material of her skirt, and Jack had to grin at the picture she made. Utterly shameless in her fascination, she was, bless her.

"Lit up the canvas o' the first ship, he did. Started her burnin' from the top down, big and bright as you please. Brought everybody running. And while they were all boardin' her, flittin' about the flames like a bunch of moths…"

"He snuck to the second ship and set her ablaze," Will finished.

"Aye. From inside her belly."

Will sat back, a smile blossoming. "Bloody clever plan."

"One for the books," Jack said, admiringly. "I told you he was a good pirate."

Will studied the older man carefully, appraisingly. "And a good teacher."

Jack, accustomed to being the reader and not the book, looked briefly startled. Then his eyes were drifting and thoughtful again, and he nodded, just barely. "Aye. That too, little brother."

Elizabeth sat in silence, observing the exchange between them, and cleared her throat delicately. "Perhaps it's a silly thought," she ventured, "but…with both of you here, and the ways you each knew him…it brings him here, too. In…in a way." She glanced away, shrugging as if to dismiss her own thoughts. "It's hardly the same, I know, but…"

"No," Will stopped her, almost whispering. He reached over and touched her cheek to get her attention on him, and he smiled. "You're right, Elizabeth." He took her hand and kissed her knuckles.

"Mind how often you tell her that, Will, or she'll be unbearable," Jack piped up, darting quickly out of reach when Elizabeth snapped the bit of laundry Jack had thrown earlier back in his direction, holding it by one sleeve. She missed her intended target, and the motion freed the crumpled logbook pages, spilling them to the floor. "Now, look what you've done. Will, did you see that?"

"Next time, darling, put a bit more elbow and a bit less wrist into it," Will suggested helpfully.

"Fine, fine, take her side," Jack groused, kneeling to pick up the scattered papers, eyes skimming absently over the lines scribed on them in an unchanging hand. "Just because she's all pretty and sweet-smelling…"

Without warning, a strange chill rippled through him, and Jack's fingers went still above the page he'd been reaching for. It took him a moment to realize something in those lines upon lines of text he was glancing at without seeing was the source. He scanned the entries again, this time actually reading them. Looking for whatever it was that had just raised gooseflesh all over his body.

"All right, Jack?" Will's voice jerked him away before he'd found what he sought, and Jack looked up sharply, realizing a conversation had been moving on without him.

"What're you on about, whelp?"

Will blinked twice, slowly and deliberately and annoyed. "I said run, the navy's coming."

Jack tipped his chin back, eyes narrowed. "Know that when I kick you in your ass, Will, it will be with the greatest affection."

"I _said_ I'm going to see Elizabeth home, and then I'll be right back. All right?"

It was quite amazing, really, how Will could make two words as innocent as "all right" carry such a threat of wrath. "I shall try to entertain myself until your return."

"Yes, that's what worries me," Will said dryly.

Elizabeth paused at the door. "Jack, that invitation I rounded up is with the coat." Her dark eyes widened nervously. "You're quite sure this is how you want to go about it?"

"The best way to keep people from realizing you don't belong somewhere, Elizabeth, is to act as if you do. I shall simply walk right up to the front door with the rest of the guests. Looks a great deal less suspicious than climbing in a window."

"As long as you avoid any close-range conversations with Governor Swann or Norrington--"

"Not high on my list of priorities, you can rest assured," Jack cut in.

"—and assuming none of us has pissed God off recently," Will continued, "I think we might actually get away with it."

"This is completely insane and ridiculously dangerous," Elizabeth commented. "Just to re-state the obvious."

Will smiled and wound a lock of her hair around his fingers. "And you thought you were going to be bored at this party," he reminded her teasingly.

"I did, didn't I?" She reached up to play with Will's collar. "Well, we've certainly remedied that."

Will placed one hand on Elizabeth's waist. "I won't be long, Jack," he said quietly, before opening the door.

"I'll have the candles lit and the rose petals scattered by the time you get back." Jack smirked at the double glare he was rewarded with, and then the door closed behind the lovebirds, leaving him alone.

Jack rose to lean against the table, one ankle hooked behind the other, attention returned to the paper in his hand. He perused the entries critically, but none of the ships or names listed sparked any sort of memory.

Well, there was a Captain F. Leonard marked down, and he _had_ met a Fergus Leonard in St. Augustine, once. Paunchy fellow with a peg leg and a rather unsettling interest in ladies' clothing. Not the sort one was likely to forget anytime soon…

_No. There. That's the one caught my eye. _

_Ragnarok._

A frown pulled at his brows. The ship was none he'd ever heard of, her captain just as unfamiliar.

_Ragnarok/ H. Deems, Capt./ ent. per William Yorrick_

There was nothing…nothing about it…

_ent. per William Yorrick._

He didn't know the name…

_William Yorrick._

The parchment crinkled, Jack's fingers tightening convulsively on it, as he realized what it was he'd seen.

Not the name. Not the name. It wasn't the name he knew.

Softly, Jack drew in a breath and held it as he folded the edge of the paper under, tucking the surname _Yorrick_ out of sight. Leaving only the first name, in a hand completely different from the rest of the writing in the harbormaster's book. In a hand Jack knew as well as his own.

If he closed his eyes, he could _see_...

_…a rare letter to Cathleen, bathed in unsteady candlelight. The quill scratched out the last of the writer's thoughts, and was plunged once more into the inkwell before his signature was added._

_Jack glanced away from his book, watching the movement of the long, calloused fingers over the paper. "You know, Bill, you write like a bloody girl," he commented._

_Bill reached for an envelope and the sealing wax. "Well, I thought of trying to do mine a bit more like yours, but I was afraid Catie would think it was a ransom note from some lunatic who just buried two bodies in his garden."_

Jack opened his eyes again, and the breath he'd been holding shuddered out of him.

Not the name, but the handwriting.

He was holding a document bearing yesterday's date, and Bill Turner's handwriting.

The world rushed out from under him, like soft sand pulled away by a receding wave, and Jack's legs folded, dropping him with a resounding thud onto his backside on the floor.

Voice very soft in the hushed, heavy warmth of the empty shop, Jack said, as an afterthought, "ow."

TBC 


	9. chapter eight

Thank you again to all of my reviewers, old and new. I tried very hard not make you guys wait too long for this part.

………………………………………………

_Bill's alive. Bill's alive. Bill's alive._

Even the sound of his own pulse pounding in his ears seemed to murmur the same words, over and over, emptying his mind of anything else, and for a long time Jack could do nothing with the thought but let it whirl inside him, dizzyingly, as he sat useless on the floor. It was like trying to look at all of the horizon at once; something too immense and far-reaching to be completely taken in, and the more he strained to find an end or a beginning to it, the more it pulled him from his center and swallowed him up. There would be feeling, any minute, any second now, and he knew it was coming, but for this breath, and the next, he was numb.

There was, strangely, no need to ask how. That picture was forming itself in full, glorious, horrifying clarity.

And come to think of it, Barbossa was really beginning to come across quite dreadfully fucking incompetent. Little wonder the man had been as given to indiscriminate slaughter as he was; he sucked like a chest wound at all of his less direct methods of problem solving. Only thing the old bastard had ever done away with that stayed lost was his virginity.

_Lost to the depths. _

Lost. Such a simple little word. Monosyllabic and easy to spell. Jack had thought he'd understood what it meant the day Joshamee Gibbs had come bearing it, grim-faced, all those years ago. Bill was lost, and even though Jack had known it didn't, it _couldn't_, mean dead, it felt no different to his heart. Many a time since then Jack had imagined, visualized, feared, and conjured in nightmares that left him with damp sheets and damp cheeks exactly what "lost" involved.

But never once had he hoped.

Mulling it over now, he would have to rule that as oversights went, this one took the bloody biscuit.

_Bill's alive._

It suddenly stopped whirling, stopped spinning its dervish in his mind, slamming hard into place and becoming still, taking on mass, going from incomprehensible to meaning a thousand things at once. There was a pressure in his chest rising, about to burst, and Jack couldn't have said if it would bring laughter or tears when it let loose.

_Bill's alive. He's alive and he's here. Somewhere. Somewhere a hell of a lot closer than the bottom of the sea._

_He isn't dead. He was never dead._

_Oh, Christ in a kilt, how do I break this to Will?_

_He was never dead. You bloody damned idiot, of _course_ he was never dead._

_We have to find him. Unless he finds us first. Did he come knowing where to look for_ _Will?_

_He's been alive all this time. All along. And I never thought…I never tried…_

The realization twisted something inside of him. Jack pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes, and he sat still and breathed very carefully until he was reasonably certain he wasn't going to throw up. The pressure in his chest seemed to make up its mind which form it was going to take, and was consequently shoved back down at knifepoint.

_Later_, he determined, rising to his feet. This could wait until later. As agreeable as some sort of breakdown sounded, he would much prefer to indulge in one later, once he'd done what needed doing, all explanations and confrontations accomplished. Besides which, wallowing in guilt and self-loathing was inexcusable, undignified, and useless, and only to be done when a bloke was all by his onesies and could get well and properly drunk.

Right now he needed to function. To think. And most pressingly, to figure out what in God's name he was going to say to Will when the lad came back.

**…………………………………**

_Bill drew his rucksack securely closed and tossed it on the bed, reaching to pull the desk chair out. He propped one foot up on the seat and slid his knife into the sheath in his boot. "You want to come in here and talk, Will, or you plannin' to stand there burnin' holes in my back all day?"_

_He turned and offered a small smile to his six-year-old son, who stood with one shoulder shoved sullenly into the doorjamb, glaring at him. Behind the boy, from down the hall, came the sounds of Cathleen putting the breakfast dishes away with a good deal more force than the task called for._

_"Your head's about to go flat with all you've got on your mind, lad." Bill extended his hand. "Come on. Come here."_

_Without a word, Will stepped inside his parents' room and took his father's hand. Bill sat down on the edge of the bed, guiding the little boy over to stand in front of him. "Good God, but you're getting tall."_

_Will said nothing, staring at his feet. Bill reached out and brushed dark bangs out of the boy's eyes with his thumb._

_"You're angry with me, aren't you, lad?" When he still failed to coax a response from his son, Bill reached out and gently caught the tip of Will's nose between two knuckles, barely giving it a squeeze. Will's eyes flickered up to his father's in annoyance, a tiny frown pinching his face, but just as quickly he looked away. "It's all right, you know. I understand."_

_There was the softest of sniffles. "Why do you have to go so far?"_

_"It's where my work is taking me." Bill silently wished for it to satisfy the boy, because any explanation that ran much deeper was going to tread close to a lie. And the thought of lying to his son clawed at his conscience more sharply than the actions requiring the dishonesty ever would._

_But Will wasn't, and never had been, so easily dissuaded when there was something he was grappling to understand. "There are ships _here_."_

_"Yes. Yes there are. But they…there are none of them that need me right now, Will. And I can't just wait for a place to open on one. Not when I have to provide for you and your mother."_

"_But it might only be a little while before one of them needed you!" Now Will looked his father in the eye, when he was trying to be persuasive._

_Bill nodded. "That's true. But what if it was a very long time? What would we do until then?"_

_Will worried at his lower lip. Catie always teased the lad that one day he would nibble it right off and never be able to whistle again. Bill doubted the reminder would make Will giggle today as it usually did. "Mother works," he said haltingly, as if knowing the point wasn't going to help him win the argument._

_"Yes she does. But Will, you know that a lot of the people your mother helps don't have the money to pay her for what she does." He fastened a button midway down Will's shirt that had somehow managed to pop open. "That isn't why she does it. She just wants to see those little babies come into the world strong and healthy. Like you did."_

_Will's eyebrows leaped up almost to his hair. "I could go to work! Just until you got on one of the ships here! Thomas White takes people their firewood after his grandfather cuts it up. I could help him. I know he'd like to have help, especially on the mornings it rains."_

_Bill swallowed with difficulty, prouder of the boy standing before him than he could imagine ever being of anyone. "That's a fine offer, William. But it isn't the place of children to work. You belong in school." And Bill would seize every last scrap of shine and silk off every vessel between here and the Americas before a child of his would carry the burden of figuring out where his next meal would come from._

_Will slumped, apparently out of ideas, and heaved a shaky sigh that sounded full of tears to Bill. He hugged the lad close, tucking Will's head under his chin, as much to conceal the sudden wetness in his own eyes from his son as to offer comfort._

"_I'm no happier about this than you are, lad," he murmured. "Believe me. If I could stay here I would."_

_"Can't we go with you?" The plea was punctuated with a sharp intake of breath, and without even looking, Bill wiped away the moisture trailing down his son's cheek._

_"Oh, lad, I don't even know what's waiting for me in the Caribbean. I can't drag you and your mother away from your life here, all the way to the other side of the world, with no promise of a home waiting for you." He raised a hand, lightning quick, to dry his own face, never relinquishing his hold on Will, and summoned up a chuckle. "What if I got you two there and you had to live on a big slimy rock in the middle of the ocean, with a bunch of smelly, noisy seagulls who messed all over everything and kept pecking your ears every time you tried to go to sleep?" He tickled Will's ear as he spoke, and the boy curled up, giggling unwillingly and batting at Bill's hand. Bill waited until he'd gone still, then he hoisted Will up onto his knee, groaning exaggeratedly. "Good Lord, what've you been eating? Rocks? You're a bloody anchor, boy."_

_Soundless laughter shook Will's body as he shifted to burrow against Bill's chest again, but it passed quickly, until the only movement from either of them came from their breathing._

"_Papa?"_

_Bill laid his cheek against the top of Will's dark head. "Hmm?"_

_"I'll see you again, won't I? After…"_

_Bill closed his eyes, and tightened his arms. "Of course you will, lad. Of course you will. Your old man would never leave you for keeps."_

**………………………………**

Bill drained his drink, slamming the glass down on the table, and unhooked the small money pouch from his belt. Without looking up, he tossed it across the table to land in front of the two men sitting opposite him: Mr. Smith, and Mr. Smith's Friend.

The two of them waited for him to say something, exchanging an uncertain glance when he didn't. Finally, Mr. Smith reached for the pouch.

Bill's hand was a vice on his wrist before he so much as touched it, and Mr. Smith found himself dragged halfway across the table, the point of Bill's knife pressed beneath his chin, and an alarmingly calm face inches from his own.

Mr. Smith's Friend swore and staggered back from the table, ready to bolt.

"Sit down, mate," Bill instructed the second man, halting his retreat. "We're just going to lay down the specifics of our arrangement here." When there was no forward movement from Mr. Smith's Friend, Bill spared him a quick glance. "I _said_, sit down." The knife moved, infinitesimally.

"Sit down!" Mr. Smith croaked to his accomplice.

After a brief hesitation, Mr. Smith's Friend righted his chair and sank into it.

"Now. The nature of our business requires that I give you payment up front. Not that I wish to imply anything but the utmost trust in you gentlemen," Bill said, and Mr. Smith swallowed very, very carefully, "I want to make it quite clear that if you leave this place with my money, and fail to follow through with your end of things, I will hunt both of you down and relieve you of your balls, and if you're lucky, I'll do it with a knife instead of a fishhook."

Mr. Smith started to nod, and quickly realized the action was ill advised. "Right, mate. We'll be there. Where…ever it is you want us."

Another glance at Mr. Smith's Friend showed him nodding vigorously in agreement while squirming on his chair in a manner that suggested he was trying not to wet himself.

And then the knife had vanished, Mr. Smith's wrist was free, and Bill was sitting in his chair as relaxed as could be.

"All right then. As I already told Mr. Smith, what I need you to do, lads, is get yourselves thrown in jail. Nothing serious; in fact the more minor the offense, the better. Drunk and disorderly should do nicely. Something they'll make you sleep off in a cell. I'm not asking you to do anything that's going to lead you to the gallows."

"So you want us to…get drunk?" Mr. Smith's Friend asked, the first complete sentence he'd offered.

"No," Bill corrected. "I want you to _act_ drunk enough to get arrested. _Being_ drunk usually results in vomiting and unconsciousness, and hopefully in that order, or you're looking at a nasty end. You two are no good to me puking or passed out. In fact the more sober you are, the better. Spill a bit of something down the front of yourselves to make the smell convincing, but keep your heads clear. Understood?"

There was yet another round of nodding.

"I want you in that jail around seven o'clock, or a little past. Late, but before it gets dark. You two make your scene somewhere visible. Somewhere where people with lots of money are certain to be offended."

"That ain't no problem, mate," Mr. Smith said. "There's a big to do at the gov'ner's place tonight. For 'is daughter's weddin' or somethin'. Easily offended people in bloody swarms. We show up on his lawn in our cups and they'll have us hauled away before we can piss in the fountain."

"Perfect."

"So…once we're arrested…is that it?" Mr. Smith's Friend ventured.

Bill smiled, a nearly imperceptible lifting of one corner of his mouth. "Not hardly, mates. That's only the first half of the evening." He caught the barkeep's eye and raised his empty glass. "Once you're in, I want you to sit tight and be good little prisoners. For a couple of hours, anyway."

Mr. Smith frowned. "What 'appens after those couple hours?"

They grew quiet when one of the barmaids approached and refilled Bill's glass. Bill continued once she was out of earshot.

"Well you see, mates…that's where it gets really interesting. Because what I need from you then is the raising of sufficient hell to get as many guards on duty as possible drawn to your area, and kept occupied there for as long as possible."

"A distraction," Mr. Smith's Friend said. Mr. Smith's Friend, Bill decided, was very possibly the product of cousins marrying for a few generations too many.

"That's right."

"So what d'you need the distraction for?"

Bill took a drink. "Is your money going to spend any better with that information?"

Mr. Smith's Friend apparently needed to think this over, but Mr. Smith, who had a bit of a mental running start on his acquaintance, got the point, and gave the other man a cautionary nudge. "No, mate," Mr. Smith said agreeably to Bill. "In fact we couldn't care less."

"Glad to hear it," Bill replied. "Believe me, gentlemen, when tonight's over and done with, ignorance is going to be bliss. And if either of you has second thoughts, consider this your last chance to act on them."

Mr. Smith gave him one last, long look, then picked up the money pouch slowly. This time, Bill made no move to stop him. The man studied the pouch intently, then tucked it away inside his vest.

"Bliss, eh?" Mr. Smith said, pushing back from the table and swatting his partner on the arm in an indication to do likewise.

"Fucking euphoria," Bill replied, and drained his glass in one toss.

**……………………………………**

When Will Turner finally returned from seeing his lady home, Jack found himself in the utterly alien position of being at a loss for words. He had tried out a quite a few approaches in his head, and dismissed them each in turn.

The problem, he'd decided, was that the sort of news requiring the most painstakingly delicate of deliveries was the kind that inevitably knocked you face-first out a window no matter how gently it was passed on. So any attempt on the part of the messenger to soften the blow was futile and maddening, but to not make that attempt and just blurt it out was tacky, and any distressed reactions would no doubt be blamed on the one who did the blurting and his lack of sensitivity to the matter, when in all truth and fairness the reaction was going to be distressed no matter what, because the news was a bloody belaying pin to the crotch, and it was hardly reasonable to expect the messenger to be the face of composure and grace when he'd scarcely had the chance to wrap his own head around the information.

The only decision Jack had come to after about fifteen minutes of this sort of thinking was that he definitely shouldn't start out with, "So, Will, odd thing happened while you were gone. Remember your father?"

Will was beaming amusedly when he entered. "Well, Elizabeth's maid all but tore her off of my arm when we got there, she was in such a hurry to haul her off to dress her. I must say though, for all Elizabeth's grumbled about this event, she's finally getting a bit excited about it. I don't know if it's because we're smuggling you in, or if she decided being queen of the town for a night has its appeal after all." There was absolute adoration in the remark; as far as Will was concerned, Elizabeth was his queen.

The young man did a bit of a double take as he looked at Jack, and the pirate wasn't sure what he saw, but whatever it was made Will's smile shrink a little. "Are you all right, Jack?"

It came to him as if a floodgate had opened, spilling the proper words into his head. _Will, I think you should sit down. While you were out, I found something. Something you need to know about. Something I can guarantee you're going to have some difficulty believing, because I'm having a spot of trouble with it, m'self._

He wouldn't compose anything more suitable if he tried for a month, and Jack almost had it out when something ignited like a warning flare in his mind and held his tongue for him.

_Why Yorrick?_

It caught him broadside, obliterating his intended response to Will, his silence intensifying the concern in the younger man's eyes.

"Jack?" Will said, more sharply.

"I'm fine," Jack said, snapping back to awareness. "Think maybe the heat's getting to me, a little." Looking slightly sheepish, he gestured at the shop around him. "Air's a bit closer in here than being out in the sun on the _Pearl_."

The tinge of worry didn't leave Will's expression, but it changed somehow, became placated. "You have been shut away in here an awful lot. You should go upstairs; my room gets more fresh air. It's not nearly so smothering as down here. Elizabeth left the rest of your things up there, anyway."

Jack nodded, the bit of folded parchment pressed flat between the side of his leg and his palm. "Right then. Might as well head up and finish making myself socially acceptable, as it promises to be a singularly challenging task."

"Between the bath and the mask, you have as good a shot as we could ever hope for," Will cracked.

"Flatterer," Jack threw back as he headed up the stairs. He slid the logbook page into a pocket as he went.

The red coat, with a few strategic alterations, was lying on Will's bed as Elizabeth had indicated, a simple mask cut from a black silk sash and a ribbon-bound invitation with it. Jack sat down on the edge of the bed and pulled the garment absently into his lap.

Yorrick, of course, he understood, because it had been Jack who gave Bill his taste for Shakespeare in the first place, so Jack could appreciate the joke, gruesome and twisted as it was. Hardly his place to criticize, though; if he'd been the one tethered to the bottom of the sea for Mary and Joseph knew how long, his sense of humor would probably bend a little left-ways, too.

But why that, and not Turner? What did a man the world believed to be gone have to hide from?

_And is it enough to justify me not going downstairs right now and telling your son the truth, Bill?_

Could there really be more harm in the telling than the not?

There was one very obvious possibility: Bill was hesitant to approach his son, and wanted no word of his presence to reach Will from anyone else before he chose his hour and manner. Which was certainly understandable, and called for Jack to respect Bill's discretion.

_Even at Will's expense?_

Though it wasn't like the whelp wouldn't find out eventually. When Bill was ready.

_And you think he'll thank you for that later? When he finds out you didn't tell him as soon as you knew? When that may not even be Bill's reason?_

Could be something else, of course. Something worse. It could _always_ be something worse. What if Bill wasn't concealing anything from Will, but was concealing Will from something…or someone?

_So Will finds out a little more than he should. How bad could that be?_

Jack's internal battle called a momentary cease-fire, during which both sides scratched their heads thoughtfully.

_All right, that could be bad. But the whelp _still_ deserves to know._

Groaning, Jack flopped over backwards on the bed, one arm flung across his eyes. He was going to step in it no matter which way he went, he could tell already, so he might as well just spin the bottle and pucker the fuck up to whatever it pointed at.

He would give it until the end of the masque. It was a likely enough setting for Bill to approach his son in, considering the timing of his arrival in Port Royal; a guaranteed time and place to locate Will, particularly for someone who didn't know where Will lived or worked.

Whatever reasons Bill had for keeping his presence in Port Royal a secret, Jack would honor them for one night. Should the festivities come and go with no sign of Bootstrap, he would go to Will with his discovery. If he was flying in the face of Bill's wishes, so be it.

It would just be one more thing he'd have to hope Bill forgave him for.

**………………………………**

_Bill didn't slam the door to Jack's cabin. He thought something vital in his head was going to explode with the restraint he was employing, but he didn't slam the door._

_"You did _what_?"_

_Jack's eyebrow arched, and a hollow imitation of his usual mischievous leer flickered across his face. "Hearing givin' out in your old age, Bill?"_

_"I sure as hell hope so," Bill replied, his voice a tone of quiet that bordered on a growl, "because I thought I just heard you say you were taking up with Hector Barbossa."_

_"Ah, there, see? Still sharp as a tack." It was utterly flippant, but it hit with the force of chain shot._

_Bill stared at the dark head bowed over the desk and struggled for words like a drowning man struggled for air._

_"You cannot seriously be considering an association with that creature."_

_"Not considering, William. Decided. Finalized. Spent the better part of the evening getting all the i's dotted and t's crossed. Granted, some of his people had a bit of difficulty with that part of it, but we managed to work past--"_

_"_His_ people? What people?"_

_Jack blinked infuriatingly wide eyes at Bill. "Rude lately, Bill? You interrupted me. If you were still part of my crew that would prob'ly count as insubordination."_

_Bill ignored the jab. "What people, Jack?"_

_"Barbossa already has a crew put together. They were planning to sail for Madagascar, but he found my offer a bit more appealing."_

_Bill pressed a hand to his forehead, and the laughter that broke from his throat sounded razor-edged even to his own ears. "Oh, that's wonderful. That's just God damned wonderful, Jack. So instead of one piece of murdering garbage, you get a whole ship full."_

_"I need a crew for this, William. This saves me the time of having to build one from the ground up."_

_"Kicking over a fucking rock would save me the time of having to cook dinner, too, if I wanted to eat whatever crawled out from under it!" Bill exploded._

_Jack's eyes darkened. "I don't need your help with this, Bill. Not anymore."_

_"You bloody well need something, lad. This…this is insanity, Jack. What in God's name would possess you to take on someone like Barbossa?"_

_"I told you, I have to have a crew."_

_"Not _this_ crew! There are better men to be found, Jack, if you'd just--"_

"_And should I expect them all to be as eager to participate as you were?" The voice came from within the curtain of Jack's long hair, spilling down to obscure most of the younger man's face as he made notes on his charts._

_Bill's tirade was cut off as swiftly and surely as if severed with a blade. "Jack…lad…"_

_Annoyed, Jack tossed his hair back and met Bill's gaze. "Never mind. For God's sake, Bill, a pirate's a pirate. Only difference between me taking this lot or waiting for the next is how long it'll take me to get m' bleedin' gold!"_

_Bill shook his head. "No, Jack. You're better than this. You're better than _them_."_

_"It's not really relevant what you think of 'em, Bill. This is the crew I've chosen."_

_"Or the one you're settling for." Bill stepped closer. "Is that what this is?"_

_Jack slammed his hands down on the chart, head snapping up, his eyes closing as he sought composure. "What this _is_, Bill, is none of your bloody affair," the younger pirate said, quietly. "As per your wishes."_

_"I'm making it my affair."_

_Jack stilled, his head tilting to the side. He looked up at Bill through eyes that burned black. "What exactly does that mean?"_

_"It means I'm in."_

_Jack made an incredulous noise. "What the bloody hell are you playing at, William?"_

_Personal space wasn't a concept Jack had ever placed much value in, but Bill did his best to make the young captain aware of its invasion, nonetheless, leaning down to get eye-to-eye with Jack. "No playing, lad. I'm going with you."_

_Something that was almost victory, almost delight, flashed through Jack's eyes, but he chased it quickly away. "Why the change of heart?" he asked coolly, making no move to increase the space between them._

_"Because you're either out to prove something, or you're suffering from an uncharacteristic bout of stupidity. But you mark me, little sir, you'll regret bringing Barbossa aboard this ship." Bill knew, even as it came out, that it was going to make Jack see red instead of reason, but that knowledge wasn't enough to stop him._

_"Fuck this," Jack spit scathingly, waving a hand sharply in Bill's direction and striding angrily past the man._

_"Don't you walk away from me when I'm talking to you," Bill snapped, snagging Jack by the arm as he passed._

_Jack went very, very still. He looked down at the hand encircling his arm, and when he spoke, his voice was barely audible, like the first growl of thunder heralding a storm. "Let. Go."_

_Forcing himself to breathe slowly, Bill did so, but he didn't back away. "He's a monster, Jack. And if you think I'm letting you go traipsing off to the edge of the world with that venomous, murdering son of a bitch at your back, you truly _are _daft."_

_"I see. You won't follow me on this as your captain, but you'll tag along to be my bloody nursemaid?" Jack shook his head. "Generous as the offer is, mate, I think I'll pass."_

_He turned on his heel then, yanking open a cupboard and tearing the cork out of the half-full bottle of rum he retrieved from it._

_"This isn't up for debate, Jack."_

_"Damn right it isn't, William!" Jack fumed. "This is my bloody ship. I'm captain here. And I've got no use for any man on board who doubts I'm up to the task." He tipped the bottle back, drinking too fast, making himself cough. "Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?" he choked out._

_"Just now I'm thinking I'm the only one of us with his head screwed on right!" Bill paced, raking a hand through his hair. "Jack, please. Reconsider this."_

_"I already settled up with Barbossa, Bill. I'm not goin' back on my word. It's done." One final drink, and Jack corked the bottle, slamming it down on the desk. "And I know right well what kind of man he is. I can handle him. Barbossa's got his price, same as anyone else. Lay it before him and he'll do what it takes to get there. Even if it means playin' by somebody else's rules. I laid out nice and clear what does and doesn't happen on this ship, savvy? Seein' how this ship is the only one that'll be takin' anybody to this particular prize, he was quite open to compromise. And this, William, is not going to be the first time I've sailed without you there mollycoddling me every bleedin' step of the way, and it appears I've lived to tell the tale, so any time you'd like to stop wettin' your britches over the whole business, it'd be lovely by me."_

_Every muscle in his body coiling with frustration, Bill stared down his friend, uncomprehending. "Why are you so bloody damned determined not to listen to me on this?" he demanded._

_"Because before now you never tried to tell me I couldn't do something." Jack lifted his chin defiantly. "I won't abide that from anybody, William. Not even you." He headed for the cabin door, pausing with his hand on the latch to regard Bill over his shoulder. "But I'll tell you what, mate. If you're set on this course, feel free to come along. That way if I get strangled in my sleep, you'll get to say 'I told you so' right away instead of having to wait 'til after my body washes up."_

**…………………………………**

Jack secured the black silk mask behind his head with a tidy knot, turning his face this way and that to critique the result. His untamable crown of hair and baubles had been contained, against all odds, at the nape of his neck with the help of Will, some leather cord and no small amount of swearing, after which Jack informed the younger man that if word of this was ever breathed beyond the walls of the forge, Will would end up in an unmarked grave, and he may or may not be dead when Jack put him there.

The scarlet coat had been given a thorough brushing down to clean it up, and its regulation buttons had been removed and replaced with imperfectly shaped ones of mother-of-pearl. Lastly, Elizabeth had added abundant cuffs of soft, snowy lace that cascaded over Jack's ever-moving hands.

The final touch was yet another of Will's damnable hats, this one black. _If the lad pulls out any more of these, I'm declaring it a fetish._ There were feathers, to Jack's outspoken dismay. Yet the overall effect once the blasted thing was actually on his head met with Jack's grudging approval. Everything above his mouth, nose, and jaw was nearly unrelieved shadow.

As the pirate captain stood before the looking glass admiring his pirate captain's costume, a lean specter of black and bone-white appeared behind him.

Jack turned around, and arched an eyebrow. Maybe Bill's twisted sense of humor couldn't be blamed entirely on traumatic circumstances, because Will had apparently inherited it. "That's a touch demented, whelp."

The skull visage of Baron Samedi, _vodou_ god of the dead, gave a bright, cocky grin. Will had painted his face -- God only knew with what, but it was ghastly – instead of wearing a mask. "I thought it was ironic."

"That too."

The walking skeleton cocked its head inquisitively at Jack. "What are you going to do about your beard?"

The brown eyes peering out of those black depths narrowed considerably. "Other than gut-shoot anyone who even thinks the word 'shave' too loudly, y'mean?"

Will nodded. "Fair enough. Just duck your head a bit if the governor or the commodore pass close by."

"Could be problematic when I ask one of 'em to dance." Had he been worried about those two at some point? He had a vague recollection of mild concern, but it seemed distant and absurd now.

"All right, Jack," Will said. "I'm going now, if there's nothing we haven't covered."

_Oh, no. Nothing at all._ "We're as ready as we're likely to get, lad."

And exactly how ready that was, Jack would only know when he was face-to-face with Bill Turner once again.

**TBC**


	10. chapter nine

Oh my GOD. Here it is guys. An update, after three months. And believe it or not, this story wasn't shelved or sitting untouched for ANY of that time. It's just taken me this long. Hopefully you'll all forgive me the time this took. I hope both the length of this chapter and the content will make it worth the wait.

As always, I don't own 'em. And thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone reading this.

……………………………………

Waylaid though he might have been by Elizabeth's nearly effortless seizure of control of the masquerade's tone, once bound to the idea, Wetherby Swann had done an altogether spectacular job of bringing it to life.

Elizabeth paused at the top of the staircase to gaze, awed, over the jungle of hanging ferns, opulent orchids, and tiny, potted lemon and orange trees that the lower level of the mansion had been turned into. In among the verdant greenery, lanterns of multicolored glass threw geometric rainbows across leaf, wall, and floor, and no less than two dozen birdcages housed a host of tiny finches and bright canaries, the whistling, twittering music of their communication carried on the air that was invited in through every window and door, flung open beseechingly to the humid evening. Hints of a breeze drifted lazily in, but kept to the outermost edges of the rooms. Once the house was full of people, those wisps of fresh air wouldn't make much of a difference, and Elizabeth knew it was best to savor them while she had the chance.

"This is amazing!" Elizabeth exclaimed as she descended the stairs. "You don't have any jaguars hidden away in here, do you, Father?"

A tall body topped with a blue-grey, elaborately detailed swordfish mask raised its head at her voice. This very nearly resulted in a minor disaster as the most elaborate of those details nearly took out the tray of crystal goblets being carried by the servant Swann was engaged in conversation with.

"Oh dear me." Swann tipped his head back to clear the goblets, and only quick reflexes spared the right eye of the servant. "Oh, bloody" There was a bit of back and forth weaving, and then Swann reached out and grabbed the other man's shoulder. "Here, you go that way…and I'll just" The governor brought a hand to where he would normally find his forehead, then moved it to the back of his mask, and finally grabbed the threatening extremity at its base, lifting the mask clear of his face and giving himself the look of a unicorn with a mild concussion. "Yes, there we are."

Elizabeth watched the servant flee for safer ground, smoothing the flinch from her face as her father came to meet her at the foot of the stairs. "You're looking handsome. And very pointy," she added with a giggle.

"Ahh," Swann chuckled a bit sheepishly, glancing upwards. "It seemed a clever idea at the time."

"Clever," Elizabeth agreed. "Just a bit hazardous."

"Speaking of masks, my dear, hadn't you best put yours on before the guests arrive?"

"Oh, no doubt," Elizabeth sighed, hefting the macaw's face in her hand. "I only wanted a few last minutes of free air. Help me with the combs?"

"Certainly," Swann muttered graciously, reaching up to help Elizabeth position the mask. "Oh! Goodness, Elizabeth. Did you know you have a bruise on your forehead?"

Her lips thinned, ever so slightly. "Erm, yes. Yes, I was aware of it. Thank you."

"However do you manage to do these things to yourself, dearheart?" Swann pondered, pressing the mask securely into place.

"Hard telling, Father."

"There!" He stepped back, beaming, holding her hands out to the sides. "You look simply lovely, Elizabeth."

"Why thank you!"

"Though it's unfortunate the seamstress didn't have time to complete the _rest_ of your costume…"

Elizabeth cleared her throat in a delicate warning, wearing a tight-reined smirk to match her father's.

"Well, at least we won't have to worry about you collapsing from the heat," Swann allowed, amused.

"That _is_ half the point, Father."

"Ah. What a relief it is to have such a practical daughter." Swann's eyes moved heavenward.

"Relax, Father. I'm quite sure there will be people present tonight wearing less than me." She patted him on the arm.

"How terribly reassuring."

A glimpse of something dark through the front door caught Elizabeth's eye. "Oh! Here comes Will." She turned quickly back to her father and stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek before yanking his mask down into place. "Time to put this down. Good Lord, that's quite sharp, isn't it? Have a care not to greet anyone from behind, Father." And then she was off, in a flash of cobalt and gold.

"Oh Elizabeth, _do_ let the young man get all the way up the walk, just this once!" Swann exclaimed in exasperation to the empty air she'd left in her wake.

…………………………

Elizabeth drew up short just in front of Will, eyes wide behind her mask, and he had to laugh. "Rather hard to tell with the feathers in the way, but I think that's the reaction I was going for. What d'you think?"

"Oh, Will, it's positively macabre!" Elizabeth gasped, and then a grin lit up what could be seen of her face. "I _love_ it!"

"Though I believe I rather pale in comparison," Will murmured, taking one of her hands and lifting it above her head to twirl her in a slow spin. "You're breathtaking, Elizabeth."

"Even with the beak?" she joked, but a pleased flush crept up her throat.

"Actually, the beak is…quite vicious looking," Will said, tracing a finger along the wicked curve of it.

"You think _this_ is something, you should see my father. He's going to put someone's eye out."

Elizabeth slipped her arm through Will's, and together they turned to face the house. She heaved an enormous sigh.

"Shall we?" Will asked.

"No. Let's go get Jack. We can build a bonfire and get drunk. They'll never miss us."

Will chuckled, the skull's face somewhat less menacing when it sported dimples. "That's my girl." As they made their way up the walk, he gave Elizabeth's hand a reassuring squeeze. "It isn't going to be as dreadful as you think, darling. Wait and see."

…………………………………

There was one thing to be said for seven years' imprisonment at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. It gave a man perspective on a wait of a few paltry hours.

Bill lit his pipe, settling back into the boarded-up doorway of an unused barracks across the courtyard from the gates of the fort. The stone structure bore evidence of heavy cannon damage, and he wondered if the scarring had occurred during the _Black Pearl's_ raid on the town.

He wondered if any of the men this building had housed had been among the dead left in the _Pearl's _wake.

He wondered which of the crewmen he would find alive, locked inside the cells of Fort Charles.

Probably not Bo'sun. The big man –

_flung Jack face-first to the planking, knocking out two teeth, and let Jack struggle up to his hands and knees, choking on his own blood, before he drew back a fist to strike again – _

was an escaped slave, and he wouldn't have let himself be taken alive. No, Bill would bet cold silver that Bo'sun had either died in the fight with the _Dauntless_, or he'd escaped. But very likely Ragetti, and possibly Pintel with him. Those two—

_didn't last a minute against Jack when they rushed him, to Barbossa's undisguised amusement and Bill's fierce pride_

wouldn't have fought well enough to escape, and were more suited to a twitching death on the end of a rope than a last bloody stand in battle.

And maybe Twigg. Twigg—

_"…usa'ly likes 'em younger 'n that," Koehler commented within Bill's earshot after Twigg demanded sullenly to know why they couldn't keep the ousted captain on board for a while, and Bill's stomach turned as he watched Twigg watching Jack with malevolent avarice in his gaunt face—_

was the sort that would throw down his sword quick enough when things went ill, if he thought it would buy him a reprieve…or even just a stay of execution.

Bill puffed quietly away at his pipe, the blue tendrils of smoke curling up to be snatched away in the wind that was coming in storm-scented gusts now. Will had always loved it when he blew smoke rings, watching in fascination, his mouth unconsciously trying to imitate the set of Bill's, until the faces the boy made set his father off laughing and coughing 'til his eyes watered.

Will would have been just a little younger when they found him than Jack had been. Just a little younger.

Bill exhaled a series of rings into the evening air, watching as they wafted away into nothingness, wringing the last traces of anything like hope out of his heart and into an unvoiced plea that his son's death had been quick.

Shortly, a small group of redcoats approached with two stumbling drunks in tow. Mr. Smith's Friend was overdoing it a bit, in Bill's opinion, but apparently the soldiers had all been convinced.

Bill watched them all disappear inside the fort, and he started to repack his pipe. There was still a little more time to pass.

………………………………

"…not quite as good a turnout as we saw for Richard and Emmeline's party, of course, but then that was to be expected considering what short notice the announcement came on. And speaking of Richard and Emmeline, I'm so terribly disappointed not to see them here tonight. Absolute tragedy, what happened to the poor woman. Paid a tiny fortune to have their costumes made and then her hives flare up again. She'll be sobbing over it for a month, you know. She was so desperate to be here she almost came anyway, when it was just her face that was swollen, but you should see her now. Lumpy as a sugar bowl. I blame Richard entirely, of course. If he'd just let her hire a few more servants she wouldn't have to deal with so much, and it's anxiety that's doing this to her, mark my words. Little Henrietta is _walking_ now, for Heaven's sake, and the baby's nearly weaned off the wet nurse. And it was Richard who wanted her taking those music lessons in the first place, so he ought to be considerate enough to make sure she's unburdened enough to concentrate on them…"

It wasn't easy to drain a glass of wine quickly around a beak, but it wasn't impossible, either. And Elizabeth had the motivation to perfect the technique.

"…silly idea to begin with, because we've known she was tone deaf since we were nine years old, but you know how Richard gets…"

Elizabeth contemplated her empty glass and considered using it to slit her wrists.

_Where did Will bugger off to, anyway? Saved himself and abandoned me to my slow agonizing doom here, did he? Bloody bast—_

The thought cut itself off when she spied her beloved across the room, cornered by Dr. Young, who was no doubt treating Will to one of his amputation-at-sea stories. Noting that Will looked a bit green around the gills, she was seized by a twinge of sympathy.

"…simply can't understand it, because her mother had a lovely singing voice. Homely as sin, but an exquisite voice. Thank God Emmy's so pretty. Well, when she's not all over pink bumps, that is…"

Granted, it was a very _small_ twinge.

Elizabeth caught his eye, and Will smiled weakly at her. _You said something, my love, about this not being dreadful? _

A sudden gust of cool air on her back brought some unexpected relief, but it was short-lived when she heard a muted rumble of thunder. If they had to close the windows against a downpour, she was taking the bloody party outside and waltzing ankle-deep in mud.

Her eyes swept the room in quiet desperation, searching for one of the men with the wine, only to alight on an even more welcome sight: the appearance of a blessedly familiar red coat in the doorway.

_And he's wearing the hat, feathers and all. Well done, Will._

"I beg your pardon, ladies, but I fear I've been so caught up in our chatter I've been neglecting my other guests!" _Caught up, strung up…nearly the same thing._ "I really should excuse myself now. But I'm sure I'll chat with you again before the evening's over." _If I'm forced back over here on the point of a bayonet._

There was a chorus of protests, as if it mattered one lick to the conversation whether she was present or not, and it trod on her last nerve with delicate, pointy-toed silk slippers. Smearing a sugar-dusted smile across her face, Elizabeth addressed the little circle as she gathered up her skirt to walk away. "Now girls, don't sound so disappointed," she chimed. "After all, you can't talk about me while I'm standing here, can you?"

There were perhaps ten seconds of silence, then a collective titter did its best to kick that hesitation out of notice under the rug. "Oh, Elizabeth, go on!"

Still smiling, she turned and made her escape. "Plan to," she sighed through her teeth, voice hushed.

…………………………………

The last gala of this scope that Jack had attended had been the wedding reception of a young and profoundly unattractive couple, God pity their poor ugly children, following a ceremony that he himself had presided over in the robes of the holy man he'd left bound and gagged behind a henhouse several miles away from the church. With that experience as a point of reference, Jack wondered, as he finally gained entrance to the governor's mansion, exactly what people were supposed to _do_ at these things. When they actually belonged there, and attendance lacked the thrill of probable death upon discovery.

Seemed to him that if one wasn't slipped in with the aid of a doctored invitation and walking on daggers anticipating the arrival of a not-so-very-dead-but-until-recently-buried friend, the whole thing was likely to be a coma with refreshments.

Jack was so busy scrutinizing the people that spilled through the house, seeking out a glimpse of long, dark hair or a familiar gait, noting the tallest bodies in the throng, then disregarding them each, that he was utterly oblivious to being ushered inside by the white-wigged gentleman at the door. When his invitation was given a discrete shake and a short cough issued forth, Jack's attention snapped away from the sea of masked faces to focus on the age-creased, rather annoyed one directly before him.

"Go on _in_, if you please, _sir_," the man instructed from the top of his nose.

It was remarkable, really, that no matter how high and mighty the blue bloods came, they couldn't hold a candle to the kind of contempt the people who attended them mustered up. If he ever lived to retire rich one day, Jack would do without servants just to avoid the bloody frostbite.

He took two steps and came face-to-face with a very large bird. "Hello! So glad to see you could come!" Elizabeth's voice rang out with just enough volume for the benefit of the people nearest them as she slid her arm through his. "Didn't by any chance bring your pistol, did you?" she added much more quietly.

"Beautiful plumage, Elizabeth. And no, I didn't. Why?"

"Because I want you to shoot me."

"That bad, is it?" He glanced around. "Where's our William?"

"Eating his words, at the moment," Elizabeth muttered. "Did you have any trouble getting in?"

"Not a smidge, love. My thanks to you for your assistance with that. By the by, what's the story behind the show I came upon out front? Couple of waterlogged blokes treed by some of Norrington's trained attack puppies?"

"Oh, that. Most interesting thing that's happened all night." Elizabeth deftly lifted two wine glasses from a passing tray, handing one to Jack. "My father wouldn't say too much about it. And that was the _one_ piece of tonight's gossip I actually gave two damns about getting the details on. Bloody figures, doesn't it?" Jack returned Elizabeth's grin as they wove their way through the crowd and the miniature jungle. "Anyway, much as I can gather, they were harmless, just up to a bit of mischief. Got intoxicated and stumbled over to make nuisances of themselves, harass some of the guests…" She sighed. "If only they'd done a little better job of it, I might have been spared hearing about Emmeline Newsome's hives."

Jack took a sip. "Rather a long stumble from their neighborhood to yours, isn't it, Lizzie?"

She shrugged. "Maybe they thought the entertainment would be worth the walk. Silly buggers."

"And that's the only thing been out of the ordinary, is it?" Jack asked lightly, taking in the dozens of bodies that paraded about in their masks, all wanting to be seen.

Looking for one that didn't.

"Well, there's you," Elizabeth replied, fingernail tapping on the side of her goblet. "But I expect the question already allowed for that."

"Which question would that be?" Will's voice asked suddenly. He slipped an arm around Elizabeth's waist as he joined them.

"I was just filling Jack in on what he's missed so far tonight. It was a short list."

Will seemed almost ready to agree, but, eternally the diplomat, refrained from it. "It's been…a learning experience, I'll grant you that."

Elizabeth snorted into her wineglass. "I'll say one thing, Will. If this doesn't send you screaming in the opposite direction of the altar, I trust nothing will."

Will gave her a reproachful look. "Elizabeth, I don't know why you even think such" his eyes moved to a point beyond her then, and widened. "You two. Go somewhere. Together."

Jack eyed him. "Got some kinks hidden under all that starch, don't you, lad?"

"Shut up, and go dance with Elizabeth, unless you'd like to remain and converse with Norrington and I when he gets over here," Will ordered quietly, watching the commodore's approach.

Elizabeth choked on her drink, and without ever casting an eye in the direction Will had spotted the danger, she pushed her glass into his empty hand, grabbed Jack by the wrist, and propelled them both smoothly into the spinning throng of dancers a few steps away.

"Well, I'm sure that didn't look at all suspicious," Jack commented cheerfully, matching their rhythm to the music's.

"You would rather I pushed you through the nearest window, perhaps?" Elizabeth retorted. Then she glanced down at their feet. "Where did you learn how to dance?" she demanded incredulously, realizing that not only was Jack _not_ struggling, he was quite adept.

"Learned in the barn I was born in. Can read and do up me own buttons, too, if you can believe it. _Ouch_!" He scowled at her, wiggling the toes she'd just stamped on.

"Oops," she said sweetly, then frowned behind her mask. "Jack, what's on your boot?"

"Um. Yes, about that…"

………………………………

The distant buzz of noise echoing up through the corridors from the prison tightened Gillette's face into what had to be its thirtieth frown of the day, and he swore under his breath.

Not enough that he was left to tend the kennels of every mongrel in the fort instead of being out on the hunt for real prey. He apparently didn't have a man on duty that could handle the prisoners when they got unruly. What had begun as a shouting match between one of tonight's drunks and one of yesterday's public lewd behaviors had been slowly escalating, and according to one of the lower-level guards, things had been edging from raucous towards violent.

"Murtogg!" he bellowed at the door. "What the devil is going on down there? I said I wanted those cells brought to order!"

There was no response, and Gillette shoved angrily away from the report he'd been writing. "Might as bloody well be in this place by myself for all the assistance I get." He jerked open the door, and stopped short. "You! I beg your pardon, man, but I'll have you know civilians are not allowed in this area unaccompanied by"

Gillette's mouth was still open, mid-rant, when a fist driven forward, fast as a snake strike, took him full in the face and dropped him to the floor.

Bill Turner stepped over the unconscious soldier. "Evening, Frank. You don't mind if I come in, do you?"

……………………………………

The thickening storm clouds outside seemed to make evening fall faster. More lamps were lit inside the Swann mansion, the rooms thrown into festive twilight.

Jack leaned against a shadowed bit of wall, tucked behind a monstrously large potted fern, fanning himself with the hat he'd dared to remove once the light dimmed.

His spin 'round the dance floor with Elizabeth had granted him a decent, if dizzying, view of the crowd at large, and he'd seen no trace of anyone resembling Bill. Of course, Jack himself was walking proof of how easy it was to stay nicely unseen in such a setting as this one.

_Assuming he even comes here, or that he hasn't been and gone. Been and gone before I ever arrived, and Will missed him because he didn't know he was supposed to be looking._

Jack twisted one of the braids of his beard between his fingers, a rough sigh of frustration escaping him. He was almost as estranged from doubt as he was from bathwater, and doubt didn't feel near as nice.

He caught a glimpse of Will, Elizabeth once again at his side, across the room conversing with Norrington, who was garbed resplendently as Neptune in varying shades of blue and green, complete with trident.

_Probably made from that stick he's had up his_

A door leading into one of the deeper rooms of the mansion closed gently and incompletely behind a pair of long legs encased in high boots, bringing Jack's attention sharply about. He waited a few breaths to see if the man who'd just disappeared into the next room would return, unsurprised when he didn't. Jack knew a thing or two about slinking, and that hadn't been the sort of exit a fellow made when he didn't mind the rest of the world noticing him going.

Taking quick note of the placement of both the commodore and the governor, and seeing that they both appeared engrossed in their respective business for the time being, Jack situated his hat upon his head once more, fingering the brim delicately, and stepped out from behind the concealing fronds of the fern, riding the ebb and flow of the human currents through the room towards the door that hung just barely ajar.

This room was clearly not intended for company, as it lacked the decoration of the main rooms and was unlit save for the eerie, storm-tinged light that filtered in through the open drapes. Jack drew the door shut behind him, more careful to latch it than his predecessor had been. The sounds of the party were muffled, and Jack paused but a moment just inside to listen for any noises that would indicate someone protesting his entrance here.

At the far end of the room was a set of double doors, and at their edges came the barest shine of bright lamplight from the hall beyond. Occasionally a shadow flickered through that light, too quickly-moving to be any of Swann's guests. Servants, more likely, stepping lively about their never-ending tasks for the evening. They'd be making their rounds long into the dark hours of morning, after the party wound down and the guests had all returned home.

And it was highly unlikely anyone, be they guest, host, or servant, would have reason to come in here. If a person wanted to tuck himself away undisturbed until the melee had cleared, this would be the place to do it.

Jack took a few cat-quiet paces into the room, searching the darkness for the man who'd come in ahead of him.

Could have been a servant, though. Someone taking a shortcut back to the kitchen. He might not have stopped in here at all.

But then there came a whisper of sound, cloth against cloth, as if someone were shifting on a chair, maybe making a move to rise.

Jack moved through the room, towards the place the sound had come from, still not able to discern any person-shaped silhouettes in the gloom.

A thunderclap burst above the house, a blossom of violent sound, and from somewhere to his left Jack heard a sharp intake of breath. He made out what appeared to be a settee, the back of which was to him, blocking his view of whomever was seated there.

The storm outside crawled along the side of the house, pressing against the latched windows like a living thing seeking entrance, tapping with fingertips of rain; first softly, then more insistently. Lightning turned the room briefly white-green before plunging it back into darkness.

Jack obligingly waited for the thunder to go quiet before he spoke.

"Bill?"

From the other side of the settee came a sharp, startled, and, bewilderingly, _female_ gasp.

A head rose up above the back of the sofa and held very still. "Erm…no…" a voice corrected, its tone one of abject embarrassment. A few seconds later, a second head appeared, joining the first, and another flash of lightning revealed this one to have rather disheveled curls.

The handy thing about walking in on someone in the middle of what would otherwise be a horrifically embarrassing position for all involved was that no one preoccupied with doing up his trousers was likely to start in with any of that "who are you and what do you think you're doing in here" business. Equally handy, of course, was to be as difficult to embarrass as Jack was, in whose mind modesty was viewed very much like color blindness; an inconvenience he knew of, but had never suffered from personally.

"Ah. Begging your pardon sir…miss. Thought you were someone I knew. Well, not you, miss. Didn't actually see you down there before. Anyway, my mistake. I'll just be letting meself out. Carry on." He turned on his heel, intent on making a graceful departure.

Instead he almost swallowed his own tongue when he came a breath away from colliding with Will, who was all but on top of him, wearing a look of stricken accusation on his face that made Jack feel suddenly, painfully naked.

He knew, as soon as he met Will's eyes, exactly how long the younger man had been in the room, and how much he'd heard. Will was taut as rigging in a gale, quivering with the effort not to snap.

It occurred to Jack that the resemblance between the Turners two might never have been more evident than when they were pissed off.

"Left Elizabeth hostessing all by her onesies, William?" he ventured.

"It looked as though there was something else that demanded my attention," Will replied tightly.

"Always got that eye out for trouble, haven't you, lad?" Jack noted. "What say you find yourselves another trysting place, loves," he suggested gently to the couple behind him. "Three's cozy, four's a crowd."

Few people could achieve the degree of single-minded focus Will was capable of. His attention didn't so much as flicker from Jack as half-exposed breasts were tucked away and the heavy petting party moved itself elsewhere.

As soon as they were alone, Will took a steadying breath. "Jack," he said, quietly, "what the hell is going on?"

………………………………………

Ragetti flopped from his right side to his left, scratching sleepily at his backside with one hand. Across the cell, Pintel lied, facing the wall. Twigg, slumped with his back to the bars, was already beginning to snore. All of their once-shipmates were similarly sprawled.

Neither the storm becoming slowly more enthusiastic outside nor the noise of whatever ruckus was taking place out of their sight had been enough to keep the former crewmen of the _Black Pearl_ from seeking sleep. Ragetti had been briefly hopeful, when the shouting began and the guards were called away, that something might have been lit on fire. This was out of both a general fondness on his part for burning things, and the assumption that if the fort was on fire, the soldiers would have to evacuate them. But when the passage of a little time failed to bring either the smell of smoke or an armed escort, Ragetti had sulked and settled back down to go to sleep.

Before long both the noise of the storm and the continued din of unruly prisoners and angry soldiers had fallen nearly unnoticed in the presence of a much more disturbing sound: Twigg's snoring.

"Twigg, cut it out," Ragetti grumbled.

The snoring, which really didn't sound like any kind of noise capable of being made without the aid of a handful of gravel, continued.

"Somebody kick 'im, already," Pintel tossed over his shoulder. "'Else none of us'll get a decent night's sleep."

"I ain't close enough to kick 'im," Niperkin mumbled.

"Aw, fer Chrissakes, just get up an' do it."

Abruptly, Twigg's snoring cut off.

"Now see, Nip, how hard was that?" Pintel yawned.

"What the hell are you on about?" Niperkin groused. "I didn't do nothin'. Told you already I wasn't close enough to kick 'im."

Awareness moves at different speeds depending on the company it's in. In this case, it kept to a slow crawl, until an odd gurgling began to register.

Squalls and riots they could sleep through. But there are noises that will sink into even the thickest of skulls, and Twigg was making one of them right now.

Pintel rolled over. Ragetti lifted his head. Niperkin troubled himself to sit up.

"_Ohjesusfuckingchrist!"_

Similar sentiments were offered up from various mouths as the men scrambled frantically for the backs of their cells, putting as much space as they could between themselves and the door Twigg hung from, kicking feet barely scraping the floor, eyes wild with terror as he clawed at the hand that had dragged him upright, clamped around his throat.

"Not a very warm welcome, lads," Bill Turner observed, raising his chin and letting the guttering lamplight play across his face. "But then, my going away party left something to be desired, as well."

………………………………

Will stared silently at the logbook page, golden in the glow of the candles they'd lit. Jack was seated opposite him, both of them on the floor.

Will raised his head, his breath catching in the softest of sobs, and looked at Jack, who was twisting his ring around and around on his finger. "He's alive?" Will breathed, his eyes wet. "He's alive?"

Jack nodded, vigorously, lip caught between gold teeth.

"I don't…" Will broke off, pressing the back of his hand to his mouth. "I don't see…_how_?"

"The curse, lad," Jack said, and this was the part that hurt; the cleansing of the wound. "It was the curse. He was…unbreakable. Just like the rest of 'em."

Will's hand went to his chest, his eyes closing, spilling tears down his cheeks as his head dropped. Jack's hand flitted out towards him, but the pirate faltered, snatched it back, ran his fingertips over his moustache. "Will…"

"He was alive down there. He was alive and he couldn't get away. Oh, God…"

"No, Will, he _did_ get away," Jack said softly, leaning in close. "He got free, because he's here now. Somewhere in Port Royal."

Will straightened, anger burning through the tears. "How long have you known, Jack?" he demanded. "Did you come here to find him? Have you kept this to yourself all this time?"

"I've only known a few hours. Only when I saw his writing there." The corner of his mouth lifted in a weak attempt at a smile. "Fortuitous spot of vandalism, wasn't it?"

Will didn't return the smile. "And when were you planning to tell me? Holding out for another of your opportune moments, Jack? More of your bloody secret keeping?"

"Not for my sake, Will. For his," Jack said. "He came here as someone other than William Turner for a reason. Without knowing what that was, I thought it best to let him make the first move. I believed – I truly believed – that he would make it here. Tonight. I think he still may."

………………………………

"_Bootstrap_?" Pintel rasped.

"In the flesh." In the wavering luminescence of the lamps, Bill's eyes shone red. "And isn't that just the damnedest thing."

"You can't _be_ here!" Ragetti's voice rose to something approaching a shriek. "Barbossa took care o'you!"

"He did, didn't he? Maybe I'm just a figment of your imagination, Ragetti. Just a bad dream." Bill's fingers flexed, and Twigg's gurgling dwindled to a wheeze. "What d'you think, Twigg? Does this feel like a bad dream to you?"

Twigg's lips were beginning to go purplish.

"How the hell…?" Pintel croaked. "How the hell are you standing here?"

"For future reference, lads," Bill growled, "immortality doesn't shrink when it gets wet."

"You survived down there"

"Seven years, mates. But top marks for effort."

Pintel's face twisted with resentment. "S'pose we could say the same to you."

What moved through Bill's eyes then left them shark-like, cold and blank.

"Thought you fixed us good, didn't you, Bootstrap?" the stocky pirate spit.

"That I did, Pintel. That I did." Bill's grip on Twigg's throat shifted, not releasing, but allowing him to breathe. Twigg's feet came down flat on the floor as he gasped raggedly. "Yet here we all are. Living…breathing…mortal."

Bill moved the hand that wasn't on Twigg's throat to his cutlass hilt, and the blade whispered its way out of its sheath.

"Let's linger on that last one a moment, shall we, mates?" he said, smiling icily and brandishing the weapon.

…………………………………

Will listened, rigidly, as Jack explained himself. "So you helped him hide from me," he ruled when Jack had finished.

The older man's face fell. "That's not"

"You should have told me, Jack. Whatever reasons you thought he had, you should have told me as soon as you knew." Will shook his head. "This wasn't your choice to make alone, you know. He's my _father_. I had a right to know about this and make up my own mind how to handle it."

Jack deflated. "I wasn't trying to deceive you, Will. I wanted to do right by both of you."

"But when you couldn't, your first loyalty was to him, is that it? You owed him more than you owe me?"

It was double-edged, and Will cut himself as sharply with the words as he did Jack.

The pirate recoiled. "Don't put me there, Will," he protested in a rough near-whisper. "'s unfair."

Will's glare flickered, then faded. He gazed into the candlelight, passing one finger quickly through a flame. "I know." He rubbed the stinging pad of his finger with his thumb. The heat was fading, and the skin was uninjured. "And I understand. I don't like it…and I think you were wrong. But I understand."

Jack inclined his head. "I would ask you for no more than that," he replied softly, appreciatively. His mouth opened as if he would have said more, but something bound his tongue as he sat there, dark eyes downcast.

"Jack," Will prompted, frowning. "What is it?"

"I never meant to keep him from you." Softer, nearly, than the rain blown across the window.

"Jack, I know. I told you, I underst"

And he broke off then, as Jack looked up, realizing they were addressing something else entirely.

Jack's hand swept down his face, magician-fast and butterfly-light, but not quite fast or light enough, and the fingers Will closed his own around were wet. He turned that hand over in his, studying the pale scar, thinner and more depressed than the one on his own palm, running more horizontal than Elizabeth's, and wiped the moisture away with his thumb.

"You didn't," he told Jack resolutely.

"Spoken like one who wasn't there," the pirate replied, and when he withdrew, Will didn't resist, letting the smaller, more weathered hand slip like water from his own. "Those of us who were may disagree, lad. And we might not be so quick to forgive, savvy?"

Jack could see the denial of the very idea as Will drew himself up around that core of tempered steel stubbornness. "Maybe we'd best wait and hear what my father has to say for himself," the younger man reasoned, and Jack simply gave a nod.

"Aye. We'll hear ol' Bill out."

The thought rocked Will backwards then, as if he were bracing himself against a sudden buffeting wind, catching his breath. "My God," he whispered, burying his face in his hands.

Jack watched him, granting him quiet company for a few minutes more. Then he reached out and skimmed his fingers over the crown of Will's head, barely ruffling the hair. "Your face is going to get smudgy," he warned.

Will laughed breathlessly, edgily, removing his hands.

"Want to be alone with this for a bit, lad?" Jack questioned, but Will shook his head.

"No," he said. "No, I really don't." He pushed himself to his knees, and paused, looking down at Jack. "I don't want to be alone with any of this, Jack."

Jack smiled, and he leaned over to blow out the candles. "Then let's go find your lass, little brother," he said, rising to his feet with Will.

……………………………

The party showed no signs of having missed them as they stepped as casually as possible back out into the activity. Or at least, Will thought they were being casual, but a sharp poke in the ribs and an amused growl of, "stop walking like you were in there knobbing the preacher's daughter" had him reconsidering. It also, to the shared disappointment of both Will and Jack, yielded no sign of Bill.

"How are we supposed to find him, Jack?" Will despaired.

"I wouldn't fret too much about that, lad," Jack replied. "I think he means to find you."

The younger man simply _bled_ hope. "You really think he'll come here?" His eyes darted wildly around the room, and Jack half expected him to climb atop one of the tables to gain a better vantage point.

"Be the bloody queen mother of all coincidences if after all this time he just happened upon Port Royal the day before your engagement party," Jack said.

"I suppose that's true," Will agreed hesitantly.

"Not the only place he could seek you out, of course. But certainly the most likely."

Will glanced askance at him. "Certainly."

"And it's not as if we can just go door to door looking even if he _doesn't_ come here. Horrendously inefficient, that."

A hint of a nervous tick tugged at Baron Samedi's eye. "Jack, how sure are you?"

"Very! I am very sure that this is probably where Bill will come to find you."

"Probably?"

"Probably."

"Not definitely?"

"Will," Jack said, tapping into a fresh vein of patience for good measure, "this rock was only dropped in my pond a few hours before yours. Gives me something of a head start on settling the ripples down, but not much, savvy? There _are_ a few unknowns at work here."

Will looked briefly indignant, but it didn't last. "I'm sorry. You're right, it makes more sense to wait here than to go out chasing after him. I just…I can't stand the waiting, Jack." He sighed, running a hand through his hair in aggravation. "I can't stand it, and I don't know what I'm going to do or say once it's over." The admission was pained. "What am I going to say to him, Jack?"

He appeared to genuinely expect something sage and useful in reply to that, which Jack found both flattering and awkward. He'd been pragmatically avoiding that particular question, not being especially fond of the sensation of gut-twisting fear and shame that accompanied it, and was actually considering the tactical change of keeping his mouth shut entirely, given the better than decent chance the man he'd led to a watery and premature burial would sooner see him keelhauled than listen to anything he had to say. "Sorry I didn't take your advice about the bad nasty men", while both accurate and earnest, wouldn't quite resonate the way it should.

"Somehow I think anything you come up with will be all right by him," he told Will gently, grateful when it seemed to give the lad a measure of reassurance.

A particular swirl of color approaching caught his eye then, and Jack touched Will's elbow. "Elizabeth," he pointed out with a jerk of his chin. He felt Will tense beside him momentarily. _Ah ha, see? Those explanations can be intimidating little bastards, can't they, whelp? _He shooed the thought off, but not before allowing himself the tiniest of smirks over it.

"Where in the world did you two sneak off to?" Elizabeth demanded, though not with any real anger. "I was starting to think Jack had kidnapped you, Will." She hesitated then, giving them each a searching look. "Is everything all right?"

Jack held back, silently offering the first word to Will, only to step readily to the rescue when the younger man cast his friend a pleading glance. "William just needed a bit of a reprieve, love," he said. "He's not used to this sort o' wild revelry."

"Oh, yes, it's a veritable bacchanalia," Elizabeth deadpanned.

"Actually, if you two will excuse me for a few minutes, I…I'm just going to get a drink of water," Will announced apologetically, and put on a thin smile. "Socializing is almost as parching as smithing, it turns out," he joked. Elizabeth and Jack each gave him looks of sympathetic understanding as he slipped off, though they were, of course, for two completely different reasons.

"I think even my father is getting bored, though he'd have to have his fingernails pulled out before he'd admit it." Elizabeth shook her head, smiling ruefully. "Poor man. He's gotten his snout caught in two of the birdcages and a cheese plate so far. I'm terrified it'll be one of the lamps next."

"T'would liven things up though, you must admit," Jack commented, and she glared at him.

"I'm not quite bored enough to wish immolation on my father, thank you. Anyway, James took him off for a bit of business talk before he could injure himself or others."

"And how is dear Jamie faring? Capturing himself lots of villainous cutthroats? Making the maritime world safe for king and country?" Jack's dimples threatened to swallow the rest of his face.

"Hush, you. He didn't have to let you go, you know."

"I don't like your implications, missy. I evaded him."

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. "Someone has to chase you before you can evade them, Jack."

"I know. What's he bloody waiting for?" Jack griped, irritated. "I can't best and humiliate him if he won't challenge me. How'd he ever get promoted with such a hideous lack of initiative?"

"Oh, that's another thing. Apparently Lieutenant Gillette has let slip that very same question once or twice."

Jack frowned. "Gillette? That pink toad Will and I plucked the _Interceptor_ from? He's a fine one to be mouthin' off. He couldn't catch the clap."

Elizabeth let out an unladylike and very loud bark of laughter, slapping a hand over her mouth. "James said Gillette's taken issue with his methods. And earlier today they had words. Evidently, Gillette was a bit too freehanded with certain information on some prisoners. Things that probably shouldn't be public knowledge."

"Like which of them sleep in the altogether?" Jack suggested.

"_Ugh_, Jack," Elizabeth groaned. "No. As a matter of fact, someone came 'round asking questions about Barbossa's old crew. The ones who haven't been executed yet. Wanting to know about where they were being held, what sort of watch they were under…that sort of thing."

Jack felt something twist inside of him. Sliding home like Barbossa's blade in his belly, cold and penetrating and horrible.

"And Gillette laid it all out for him. Needless to say, James isn't happy." Elizabeth glanced over at him, and she froze. "My God, Jack, what's wrong? Are you sick?"

For a moment he thought he was going to be, thought he was going to drop to his knees right here in the middle of the floor and retch with the comprehension that had come upon him like a fever.

All around him, the party whirled on, oblivious. He saw Will, making his way back through the crowd. As he came, Will passed close by one of the open windows, just as the storm outside gave birth to another flash of lightning. It lit up Will's face, in its painted-on death mask, and the wind blew the white curtains up to tangle around him like a shroud.

This was the likeliest place, Jack had believed, and really, he'd been right about that. This is where Bill would've come, if he were looking for his son. But as he watched Will come closer, wearing the face of a corpse, Jack realized his mistake.

_He isn't here for Will. He's here for them_.

Beneath his fingers, clenched involuntarily into a white-knuckled fist, Jack could feel the scar. A superficial wound that had stung viciously, bled just enough and itched in the healing. Quickly inflicted and quickly mended. Just like Will's.

But Bill would've had no way of knowing that. He would have known only that his blood had been spilled from another body. That Hector Barbossa had his only child.

His first breath would have come with the belief Will had drawn his last.

"Jack!"

Elizabeth's voice, truly frightened now, cut through the whirlwind of his thoughts. But Will was coming up behind her, and it was to him Jack gave his attention.

"He's not coming here, Will."

Will sagged. "But you said"

"Yes I know, I was there when I said it. The situation isn't quite what I thought it to be at the time." Jack slipped a finger under the mask to scratch delicately at his temple. "In point of fact it may be quite a lot worse."

"Worse," Will echoed. "How much worse?"

Jack took hold of Will's elbow and started looking for an escape route. "Bad enough that we really should have been running before you asked me that question."

……………………………………

All things came down to perspective, really. A storm at sea could be thrilling and beautiful if you were watching it from your safe spot on dry land. The patterns of a fine blade in skilled hands looked artful, unless your entrails were going to end up part of the masterpiece.

The noose sounded like the worst of all possible ends when you were awaiting it penned up like a veal for weeks on end, until the grim reaper showed up in person outside your cell, scythe in hand, prepared to cut out, if you will, the middleman.

Clammy with sweat, Pintel eyed Bill Turner, searching for signs of a bluff. After all, this was the same man who'd stuck his own neck on the block over what he'd seen as a question of honor, in protest of a terrible wrongdoing. Bootstrap worried about shit like that. He had morals.

Pintel started to take a challenging step forward, and at the movement, Bill's eyes swung to him, halting him in his tracks.

Then again, Turner's morals – and, for that matter, his sanity had been soaking at the bottom of the sea for a very long time.

"I'll keep this simple, for the benefit of the not-so-bloody-bright among you." Bill's gaze finally lifted from Pintel, sweeping over the rest of the group. "I have questions. I am going to get answers to them, either with your cooperation, or without. Does anyone not understand?"

"And why should we cooperate with you, Bootstrap?" Pintel demanded. "We're all dead men here, anyway." There was a gruff chorus of agreement. "Seems to me there ain't much incentive for us bein' _cooperative_."

"Yeah!" Ragetti chimed in. "What's in it for us? You gonna let us out of here if we help you?"

Bill cocked his head to the side. "You know, I don't think I will." And in a liquid movement of muscle and steel, he jabbed the cutlass through the bars, slicing off the top of Twigg's right ear.

Twigg screamed, clutching at the side of his head, blood-slippery fingers clawing frantically at his scalp, and probably would have dropped like a stone if not for Bill's hand at his neck, holding him trapped against the door. A hold that turned strangling once more, crushing Twigg's scream into a gasp.

"Dead men you may be, lads," Bill said, and he brought the blade to the other side of Twigg's face, laying it against the skin with no pressure, but plenty of promise. "But you can go one way…" he tapped with the blade, drawing a whimper instead of blood, "…or you can go another. As it stands, I've no other plans for this evening. Nowhere else I need to be. This can take as long as you all decide to make it."

"Or until the guards come runnin'" Ragetti hissed, with a bravado rather undermined by the way he shifted his weight rapidly from foot to foot.

"Ah, well…the guards," Bill muttered, a dry sound that wasn't really a laugh escaping him. "The guards, Ragetti, are a bit preoccupied with other troubles right now, from the sound of things. I don't think we need to worry about them disturbing us for a while."

The blonde's working eye flicked towards the direction of the noise that, now that he paid it some mind, still hadn't died down. "No guards?"

Bill shook his head. "No guards."

Ragetti licked his lips. "The…the lieutenant"

"He won't be joining us, either, Ragetti," Bill said, and the lack of elaboration blanched more than one of the grimy faces before him.

Twigg took that moment to piss down his own leg.

…………………………

Thunder split the air apart, and Jack ripped off the hat and the mask, swiping at the rainwater pouring into his eyes with his sleeve.

"You're wrong, Jack," Will nearly had to yell to be heard over the rain that was drenching them in undulating sheets as they tore through the streets towards the fort. "He wouldn't do anything like what you're suggesting." He glared out from behind the dripping hair blown into his face. "Damn it, Jack, listen to me! I know my father!"

He pulled up short, stumbling, when Jack stopped abruptly, right in front of him, pivoting to peer intently up at the younger man. "The _Mercedes_ and the _Magdalena_," Jack announced, like it solved a puzzle.

Breathing heavily, Will shoved the soaked hair out of his eyes. "What?" he said, taken aback.

"The two ships Bill burned to flotsam and memory after their owner flogged me down a shirt size," Jack clarified. "Those were their names. The _Mercedes_ and the _Magdalena_. Don't remember if I mentioned that when I told the story before."

Will clenched his jaw, clinging to defiance as if to prevent it from washing away in the downpour.

"I know him too, Will," Jack said, tucking a wet lock of hair behind Will's right ear. "And I'm asking you now, please…shut up and run."

…………………………

Pintel found the nerve to step forward again. "Look now, Bootstrap," he began, in the sort of voice people use when they're saying things like "nice doggie", "if this is about what we done to you…that was Barbossa's doin', mate. You know that. Not like we could very well have defied him, is it?"

"Not unless any of you had balls hidden somewhere you didn't tell anyone about," Bill replied. "Bigger ones than it took to ambush an unarmed man while he slept, that is."

"Ah. You still sore about the mutiny, then?"

The chill that slithered through the cells should have left frost in its wake and frozen the puddle under Twigg's foot.

"'Cause, uh, you know that was all Barbossa's schemin', too," Pintel went on. "Not…not like the rest of us turned out any richer under him than we would've under Jack Sparrow."

Bill shuddered; the only part of his body the tremor didn't touch was his sword arm. He breathed deeply and swallowed down the rage clawing its way up the inside of his throat.

"Right!" Ragetti agreed, a bit too zealously. "We was only doin' as he said we should!"

"True enough. No one would ever accuse you lot of thinking on your own." A few of them were wise to the fact that they should be insulted, but none complained. Bill looked them over contemptuously, disgustedly; like they were ants he'd found in his honey. _Nothing but a pack of drooling, stinking, stupid dogs running to their master's every whistle and call. Fetching when he points. Attacking when he orders. Snapping at each other over scraps and rolling in your own shit._ "No, there's not a one among you has ever done other than he was bid. And I know right well where the blame lies for all that was done to me." His voice roughened, as shredding as a reef. "And mine."

Ragetti nodded eagerly. "Barbossa!" he burst out.

"Barbossa," Bill breathed the name like opium. "He's all I want. You give him to me…you tell me where to find him…and I'll go away. I'll leave you to whatever time you have left, here in your cages."

The men threw glances at each other, shifting, one after another, out of their rigid, fearful paralysis. Ragetti blinked wildly, one eye a bit faster than the other, and his long limbs slackened with sudden relief.

"Well if that's what yer wantin', Bootstrap," Pintel said, "all you have to do is find yer way back to la Muerta."

"He's still at the island?" Bill demanded.

"Aye. You can spit on his bones right where they fell if you like."

Bill stared at the shorter man blankly. "His bones," he echoed.

"He's dead, Turner. Died the night our curse was lifted."

"'s the truth!" Ragetti all but tripped over himself confirming it. "He's gone, Bootstrap! Dead and gone!"

"Dead." The cutlass clanged against the bars as Bill slumped, letting it drop, letting it slide from the door to hang from nerveless fingers at his side. He pressed his forehead against the rough metal, eyes almost closed. "Dead."

Twigg, still holding his mangled ear, felt the hand on his throat loosen and slip away, and he sucked in a full, unhindered breath, releasing it in a noisy sigh of relief as he tipped back against the door, legs shaking.

The eerie keening that rose up behind him was his only warning.

Bill's wail became a scream, and he drove the cutlass two-handed through the cell door, and, consequently, through Twigg, who was momentarily distracted from his dangling ear by the six inches of dripping metal that suddenly burst from between his ribs. Only momentarily, of course.

After that, he was just dead.

"_He was mine!"_ Bill raged, planting a foot on the door and pulling his weapon loose. "He was my kill!" A wide swing struck sparks on the cell bars. _"Mine!"_ An overhead strike obliterated the nearest lantern. Bill paced like a frenzied tiger, not even noticing when the cutlass slipped from his grasp. He raked a hand through his hair, leaving bloody streaks behind. "No," he moaned, "no. No. I was supposed to kill him. I was supposed to kill him. It was supposed to be me. It was supposed to be slow. He was supposed to suffer." He whirled, grabbing the bars and rattling the heavy door on its hinges. _"He was supposed to suffer!"_

The rest of the men cowered, those that could find their voices screaming for aid from the guards. Through a haze of trapped rabbit panic, Ragetti caught the gleam of metal on the floor outside the cell.

He skinned his shins and his knees in the dive for the weapon, thrusting his outstretched hand through the bars, against the floor, fingers scuttling, spider-like, until they closed on the hilt.

Bill's boot came down on Ragetti's wrist with a sickening crunch, and the pirate howled. Hands wrapped around his arm and yanked him, face first, into the bars. When he'd managed to blink the starbursts from his vision, Ragetti was looking right into Bill's face.

Not only was there no one home, the house was burning down.

"If I can't have Barbossa's blood," Bill said raggedly, "I'll settle for yours." He tore his eyes from Ragetti to look at the rest of them. "All of yours." Before eight pairs of terrified eyes, Bill reached into his vest and pulled out a ring of keys.

"Please, Bootstrap," Ragetti whimpered, trying to wrench himself free. "You're the good one. Have a little mercy, mate?"

Bill stared at him, and started to laugh. "Mercy. _You_ would dare talk to _me_ about mercy." The laughter deepened, shaking his whole body. "Fine," he snapped, moving his grip to Ragetti's hair, pulling his head up. "How 'bout this, _mate_?" The tip of the cutlass was suddenly hovering just in front of the pirate's good eye. "I won't kill you, Ragetti," Bill said, "but I'll still be the last thing you ever see."

Ragetti screamed. Over that, from somewhere to his left, came another cry.

"Bill, _stop_!"

He had no time to turn before someone grabbed his shoulder, strong hands intent on pulling him back from the cell. Snarling, Bill came out of his crouch in a spin, catching his assailant by the throat and shoving him brutally against a wall. He drew back his sword arm, flinching against the ferocious brilliance of the lightning setting the sky on fire. And then he froze.

_One thousand one._

_One thousand two._

_One thousand—_

Thunder shook the earth and the sky, so loud it was as much physical sensation as it was sound.

Jack made an attempt to smile reassuringly at the man connected to the hand that was getting uncomfortably intimate with his windpipe. Abruptly, the pressure was gone, and Jack was gasping and coughing and rubbing at a neck that was going to be as multicolored as the rest of him come morning, from the feel of things. "Having a bad week, Bill?" he croaked out.

The cutlass clattered to the floor, and hands were cupping Jack's face, startling him more than the near-throttling had.

"Jack?" It was spoken by two voices at once, and Jack felt his flesh break out in goosebumps.

Will came loping down the stairs. The rain had made a mess of his paint; the white skull's face was still discernable, but it was streaked with rivulets of black, like melting candle wax. Or old blood. Will stopped at the foot of the steps, looking from Jack to the taller man standing before him.

Bill was half-turned, one hand still soft against Jack's cheek. He looked like someone who'd been shaken too quickly from sleep, and was still a step out of time with the waking world.

Jack laid his hand over Bill's where the older man touched him, gently drawing Bill's focus back. "You know him, too, Bill. Look closely." Brown eyes rolled thoughtfully. "And…maybe imagine him a bit shorter."

Will came cautiously towards them. He caught sight of Twigg's body, and stiffened in horror. His eyes asked the question of Jack, and the grief that pinched the pirate captain's face gave him all the answer he needed. "Oh, Papa, no…" he lamented softly, heartbrokenly.

The color bled from Bill's face, and his legs gave out beneath him.

TBC 


	11. chapter ten

I think I'm just going to stop saying, "yeah, this part won't take me that long", because it's a curse.

Let me just say I'm VERY sorry this took so long. Real life has been a bit more tied up and chaotic the last few months than it normally is, and I ended up spending less time on this than I was previously. (However my best friend is now gloriously, happily married, I managed to _not_ trip on my bridesmaid's dress on either the way down or back up the aisle, the bachelorette weekend in Pittsburgh was a blast, and my little sister has now had both her high school graduation and her graduation party.)

_So._ Thank you again to everyone who's reviewed, I still don't own the characters, and here we go again.

……………………………………………………

_His watch ended, Bill headed below decks and made immediately for his hammock, hoping to find it occupied, and the occupant sleeping. In the week since the salvage of the slaughtered _Charybdis_, the one survivor she'd yielded up had flirted only occasionally, and very briefly, with sleep. His hours had gotten away from him, was Jack's explanation when Bill had voiced his concern. Night and day got a bit tangled together while he'd been in hiding. Wasn't real sure of when he'd been awake and when he'd been asleep during that time, and now slumber was eluding him completely._

_Bill thought it was more likely the other way around, that it was Jack fighting to outpace the fatigue dogging his steps, but he hadn't pressed that point. The lad had the tenacity of the bloody Nile, and Bill had a still-healing bite on his arm as a reminder of that._

_So he hadn't pushed, and he hadn't preached, and when he'd found Jack sprawled in his hammock this evening, an open book on the floor where it had slipped from fingers that only exhaustion had managed to still, Bill had simply draped his coat over the younger man, brushed a tickling lock of hair out of Jack's face, and dimmed the lantern as he left to take up his post._

_Returning now, Bill discovered he'd be bunking on the floor for the remainder of the night, and quite relieved he was about it, too. It meant he could scrap his fallback plan, which had involved laudanum, and a guilty conscience, no matter how badly the kid needed to rest._

_Jack had curled more tightly in on himself as he slept, and Bill's coat had been partially pinned beneath his body as he shifted. As Bill removed his baldric, he saw that the movement had gotten Jack's arm tangled in the folds of heavy fabric, twisted stiffly into what was going to become a very uncomfortable position before long._

_As unobtrusively as he could manage, Bill moved to ease Jack over onto his back long enough to loosen the wrap of the coat. The first hint of pressure on his shoulder drew a sharp breath from the sleeper, and distress flickered in the slack face like a candle flame set fluttering by a draft._

_"There now, lad," Bill murmured, almost inaudibly, as he worked the coat free, and reached_ _to take hold of Jack's arm and stretch it out before it ended up as asleep as its owner. "Nothin' worse than wakin' up to pins and needles."_

_He felt the tendons in Jack's wrist tense and coil a bare instant before slumber split open at the seams, and the younger man came up kicking and clawing, gasping in too much air too quickly, and making horrible, strangled, panicked noises that sounded like they were trying to be screams, if they could only escape the cage of his lungs. "Jesus, Jack, don't! It's all right, lad, it's all right!" Bill's grip tightened reflexively to keep the thrashing body from spilling itself out of the hammock to the hard planking below, and Jack fought the benign restraint madly, eyes wide but unawake. Gritting his teeth, Bill seized Jack from behind, pinning the younger man's arms across his chest, narrowly avoiding taking the back of Jack's skull to the nose as he ducked in close. "Jack, stop fighting me," he commanded, giving a single constricting squeeze, just shy of painful. "Wake up now."_

_One ragged, pealing cry was wrung out, and then the struggling ceased. Bill felt a different kind of tension stiffen Jack's body, and it bespoke of awareness, even if the lad's heart was still drumming wildly enough that Bill could feel it in his own chest. Bill relaxed his grip without releasing it, and brought one hand up to the dark head against his shoulder, smoothing the tangled hair. "Settle down, lad, it's just me."_

_Jack's hands clutched at the arm encircling him, muscles still rigid with ebbing terror, and Bill began to rock, swaying in time with the ship. "Everything's all right now, Jack. Just a bad dream of a bad time, and it's over now. It's all over."_

_Jack shuddered, and then sagged, empty as canvas in a calm as the nightmare seeped out of mind and body. Bill felt it go, but kept on with the rocking, anyway. He felt Jack's breath, warm through his sleeve, when the boy pressed his face into Bill's arm._

_"All I could smell was their blood." It wasn't shaky, or sobbed. Jack's voice was steady. But it was muffled against Bill's sleeve, against calico saturated with the scents of pipe smoke and sea air. "They were screamin' for ever and ever, Bill. And it was so quiet when they stopped…I thought m' ears would burst it was so quiet. I don't know how she didn't hear my heart in that quiet, Bill. I held my breath. Held it 'til I made meself tipsy and then I'd do it again. Over and over again. But I couldn't hush me bloody heart up. I don't understand how she didn't hear it."_

_Bill had been on the _Charybdis_ for maybe half an hour, in that rotted-copper stench so thick it was swallowed more than it was breathed. He imagined, very briefly, spending five days smothering in it, and marveled at the fact Jack was sane enough to form complete sentences. "It's all over, lad," Bill hushed. "Lay it down and leave it."_

_"Bill?"_

_"Aye?"_

_"Awful sorry I bit you, mate."_

"_Aye, well. There were circumstances, weren't there?"_

_"Still."_

_"You're forgiven, Jack. Don't you fret any more over it." He reached for his coat, and tugged it once more around Jack's shoulders. "Don't you fret over any of it. Everything's all right now."_

"'S all right, Bill."

Jack Sparrow sat, storm-drenched and dripping, on the stone floor, rocking to and fro, his hands stroking over Bill Turner's hair as the older man sobbed convulsively against the pirate captain's stomach, red-splashed arms wrapped around Jack's waist and ribs in a crushing embrace. "Shhh. 'S all right now." His hands quivered on Bill's back, and Jack wasn't sure if the tremor had been Bill's or his own.

"How?"

Jack looked up from the Turner collapsed across his legs to the one kneeling out of arm's reach. Will was hugging himself every bit as fiercely as his father was clutching at Jack --and Jesus, Mary, and _Joseph_, Jack was going to end up more bruised from these reunions than he had from the mutiny, the East India Company, and new year's eve in Singapore combined – and staring at Jack almost accusingly.

Jack hated that look. It was the one that made him wish he had a list handy, headed Bloody Catastrophic and Unfortunate Shit that is in No Way my Fault, just in case Will tried to peg him with anything like the Black Death or the caste system or the invention of the pan flute. He especially hated that look when he had no idea why he was getting it.

"How are we going to make any of this all right?" There was an edge to Will's voice that Jack strongly suspected the lad wasn't putting there deliberately, but was nonetheless abrading on nerves already frayed to their snapping point.

Jack blinked lingering rainwater out of his eyes, tracing figure eights over Bill's back with the fingers of one hand. "Not makin' it worse would be a good start, savvy?"

He really hadn't meant it unkindly, but Will's face fell, and Jack discovered it was, in fact, possible for him to feel even more the bastard. Felt like there was an entire octave of wretchedness he could sink to underneath the one he'd been singing at all day long. Wearily Jack let his head drop, his tangled, wet hair hiding his face as he curled at the waist, bending like a battered branch sagging to brush the ground. He rested his head against Bill's shoulder, catching as he did the scent of tobacco smoke clinging to the older man's hair and clothes, but clinging lightly, as if most of the traces of the indulgence had been stolen away by the wind. Here on the other side of a decade, this much of Bill Turner was unchanged, and the familiarity of it lanced so deep and sharp into Jack that if what it pierced could've bled real blood, he would've keeled over deader than driftwood from the loss. He inhaled deeply, remembering…and, for a few minutes, doing a bit of forgetting, as well.

…………………………………

Will watched from a distance that felt a great deal longer than the few feet it was, jaw set to stop his chin from quivering, as his father shed his misery onto Jack, the slight pirate's perpetual sway never faltering under Bill's dead weight. Even sprawled and diminished, Bill was a big man. Just as Will remembered him. Long and lean, but broad-shouldered; a swordsman's muscle lending bulk to a sailor's frame. He used to carry Will one-armed, flung over his shoulder, while Will had shrieked and giggled as he dangled from what had felt so high above the ground.

Stunned, aching, and breathless, Will found himself thinking he'd just plummeted from that height; the hands that had always held him fast bloodied and fisted in Jack's red coat. He should've moved, should've helped, should've at least spoken and he knew it, but couldn't gather his legs beneath him. He was trying very hard not to look at Twigg's body, stiffening on the other side of the cell door, the dark pool underneath still spreading, but slower now, as everything inside thickened and cooled.

The man who'd put that body there was the same man who'd sat beneath the ancient oak tree behind their house, squinting up into the leaf-dappled sunlight and grinning encouragingly as Will climbed. The same who'd scolded Will when he got himself painfully scratched trying to play with Nellie-Belle's kittens before they were old enough.

Will didn't know if he could reconcile one with the other, or if he even wanted to. He sat apart as Jack steered Bill through his despair, jealous that he hadn't been the first one his father had reached for, and ashamed that he hadn't been the first to reach for his father. That righteous, cool part of his mind that he'd always lived so comfortably in echoed with the word "murderer", but the syllables grew more foreign with every repetition, and Will couldn't make the word mean what it was supposed to.

More frightening was that "father" was sliding away from him, too. Will thought that by the time he found the courage to move forward, it would never sound the same to him again.

It was that threat, that desperation, that propelled him forward. He crawled the short distance, without bothering to regain his feet, stretching a hand out towards Bill as he came close.

"William." The gruff, raw voice was the last thing he was expecting, and Will nearly left his skin behind jerking back.

Dark eyes, bloodshot with weeping, were open and taking him in. Bill pushed himself up from Jack's lap, the younger pirate straightening to give the elder space to rise.

Will held himself perfectly still, watching warily as indistinguishable emotions swirled over each other on Bill's face. The scrutiny tingled like the onset of sunburn in its intensity, continuing unbroken for so long Will had to resist the urge to flinch away from it.

After a time, Bill reached out and ran a light touch over the curve of Will's ear, then caught a lock of Will's hair between thumb and fingers. With every movement he looked as though he had no idea what he expected the parts he touched to feel like. Bill drew the section of hair away from Will's face, watching with something akin to amazement as it slipped off his fingers and back down to the younger man's shoulder. Then he reached out to catch it on his fingertips again.

"You plannin' to sit there all night watchin' it grow, Bill?" Both Turners gave the smallest of starts at the impatient tone, and looked to Jack, who had thus far been watching the interaction between father and son unobtrusively. Crossing his arms over his chest and letting out his breath in a sharp, huffing sigh, Jack cast his glance from one to the other. "God in bloody heaven, won't one of you say something?" he exclaimed.

"He's gone buggerin' crazy!" Pintel shouted from where he'd been huddled against the far wall of his cell. He pointed one grubby finger at the mess the late Twigg was making on the floor. "Look what he's done to Twigg! He was gonna do us all!"

"Shut up!" Jack and Will snapped in unison, vehemently, and the stocky pirate retreated, wide-eyed. They turned their attention back to Bill, and Will gathered his wits enough to speak. "We probably ought to go--"

The rest of the sentence was abandoned in favor of a grunt as Will was caught up and embraced so fiercely his teeth clicked together. For a moment his arms flopped at Bill's sides, but he decided as he regained a bit of his breath that returning the embrace couldn't possibly feel as awkward and unnatural as hanging unresponsive in the clutches of such unrestrained affection. Will wrapped his arms around his father's back, refraining from putting too much pressure into the contact, and praying that any second now this would feel like home again, and this horrid hateful stiffness in his body would just fucking go and leave him alone and let him forget for a few fucking minutes that the father he'd just gotten back had stabbed a giant fucking hole through someone.

A strong hand clasped the back of his head, and Bill's lips were pressing against Will's temple. "He didn't get you," Bill breathed into Will's hair. "He didn't get you. Oh, Jesus, thank you." Clutching Will to him with one hand, Bill grasped the side of Jack's face with the other. "Thank you, God. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

……………………………………

Will was heavy in his arms. Heavier than the baby he'd cradled once or the little boy he'd been the last time Bill had held him. Heavier than Jack, whose mass never had been able to account for his strength. Both of them heavier, somehow, than eight hundred and eighty-two pieces of sneering, tainted gold, or the weight of all the water in the Caribbean bearing down upon him. He enveloped Will in a hold of iron and steel and fierce warmth, and held Jack as light and loose as he would the man's namesake; a still palm beneath capricious wings.

He needed to know how, but not yet. It would be important eventually, but right now it mattered less than the way Will fit within the curve of his arm, or the texture of Jack's beard beneath his thumb, grown full over the jaw where there had been only barely-shadowed skin when last Bill had laid eyes on him. Bill's world, for the moment, had contracted to what space he could reach with both arms, and everything beyond that fell off the edges, slipped from sight and thought like foam in the waves.

It wasn't relief. Relief had been the moment in the blue, damp hour before dawn when Bill had gathered Will, shivering and soaked from a fever finally broken, into his arms, kissing the five-year-old's matted hair as he stripped him free of his nightshirt. It had been the breathless but imaginative string of curses Jack had offered up when Bill had carried his young captain, flogged halfway into the hereafter, across the deck of the Pearl to his cabin, laying down a wake of red droplets behind them. What his heart pounded with now was beyond relief. It was resurrection.

Bill Turner clung to his boys, and lived again.

………………………………

Elizabeth had cursed the mud, her gown, and her shoes practically from her first step out of the house, and the macaw mask had, from the sound of things, hit a cat when she flung it away. When her right slipper was sucked half off her foot in the bog the side of the road had become, she kicked loose of it gratefully, said a quick prayer for the absence of broken glass in her path, and ran like hell.

The apprehension that had been sitting coiled within her ever since Will had disappeared with Jack, leaving her with only the most cursory of explanations, had burst forth when she'd seen the two soldiers approach James at the party. Too far to hear what was said between them, she had understood enough when Norrington had become suddenly grave and hurried, slipping through the crowd to the governor's side. A minimum of words was exchanged between them, and Elizabeth's throat began to close at the small frown that blossomed on her father's face.

Even before James had made it to the front door, Elizabeth had been backing up as discretely as possible, searching out an exit of her own, trying to lose herself in the very crowd she'd been wishing all night would simply evaporate.

Her father's troubled gaze had found her in seconds, and she'd moved faster, unable to look away as she saw him come to some sort of clarity. There was no time for misdirection, no time to try to make her flight look like anything other than what it was.

She had turned and run before her name was even fully formed on Wetherby Swann's lips, driven by the need to reach Will and Jack before James Norrington did.

But now, though the rain had slowed to a spent drizzle, it seemed the streets of Port Royal themselves conspired to hold her back. Bricks and cobblestones she knew like the back of her hand caught her feet, the dark and wet turning the memorized walk into a labyrinth of snares and stumbles.

She swore out loud when rounding a corner too fast put her down on one knee and one hand, but found consolation in the fact that the puddle she'd landed in twinkled with the reflected lights of the fort.

Struggling to her feet, Elizabeth yanked up her soaked, clinging skirts and raced forward.

…………………………………………

In Will's rarely indulged and wistful imaginings of what it would be like to introduce his father to the woman he loved, there hadn't been a dead body in the room. His father had never made Elizabeth's acquaintance collapsed on the floor and covered in drying gore, and Elizabeth had never entered the daydream tattered and muddy, with a skinned knee bleeding down her shin.

Will's reality of late required a great deal of adapting on his part.

It was Elizabeth's hasty and somewhat squelchy descent down the stairs that tore – tore, or freed, and what the hell kind of question is that, anyway? – him from Bill's arms. "Elizabeth!" he exclaimed softly, startled. Taking in her appearance, he rose to his feet, alarm brewing. "What are you doing here?"

"James…" she began, faltering when Bill's presence registered, but quickly remembering herself. "James Norrington is on his way here, Will. You have to go. If he finds Jack, or…" she trailed off once again, and her silence was as much a question as a warning.

"My father," Will said softly.

"Oh," Elizabeth breathed. She made her way to them, attempting to wring a bit of moisture from her hair.

Bill stood at her approach. Some things were ingrained deeply enough that even a seven-year swim couldn't wash them away, and proper treatment of a lady was one of them, no matter if said lady was lacking a shoe and wearing as much mud as she was clothing.

Will opened his mouth, but Jack got there first. "Yes fine: Elizabeth, Bill. Bill, Elizabeth. We can elaborate elsewhere. With illustrations and a bloody Greek chorus, even, but not now." He caught Bill's arm with the intention of hauling him towards the nearest door, and was jerked back abruptly when the taller man failed to move. "By 'we' I did mean all of us, and by 'elsewhere' I meant far far the hell away from this spot we've not vacated yet."

Will, who agreed wholeheartedly with this sentiment, waited for it to move Bill from where he stood, but Bill's attention was, for the moment, only for Elizabeth, and the arm she'd slipped anxiously and unconsciously through Will's. "William?" he said, his tone strange and soft.

All too aware of the seconds they were losing, and of the incredulous look Jack was giving them, Will swallowed down the tangle of nerves in his throat and covered Elizabeth's hand with his own. "Father, this is my fiancée, Elizabeth Swann."

For a moment, Bill looked as though his legs were going to fail him again, but this time, his eyes were alight. His hand flew to his mouth, and a shaky laugh escaped him. "My God."

Elizabeth smiled uncertainly. "Mr. Turner," she greeted, taking the blink of an eye to drop an impeccable curtsy. "I think perhaps we ought to postpone our more thorough introductions until we aren't being chased by the Navy."

Jack rolled his eyes. "As smart as she is pretty, mates. Now shall we?"

Finally, Bill turned and looked at him – really looked, clear-eyed and comprehending-- and Jack was treated to the same damnably knowing smile he'd received time after time when he'd been Will's age, and even younger. "I take it there's going to be a spot of trouble if you're caught here, little sir?"

Jack's knee-jerk response of "_I hate it when you call me that"_ was nearly past his lips when he realized, to his astonishment, it was no longer true. Or at least, it was less true than it had been ten years ago. "I wouldn't exactly bet on a parade, no. And not to be indelicate, mate, but your reception's not likely to be any warmer. Much as they hate pirates in this town, they get a bit testy about just who's allowed to kill them and when."

Will's face darkened, and Elizabeth cast a sideways look towards the cells she'd been tenaciously not seeing. "He's right…Father," Will stumbled a little over the word, praying no one noticed. "We need to get you away from here."

Whether it was that faltering in Will's voice, the fact that somewhere during this night he'd gone from "Papa" to "Father", or his son's urgency to smuggle him away from the scene of a murder that might easily have been the first instead of the only, Bill felt his insides clench, and he shook his head.

"No, William," he said with quiet finality. "There'll be no running from this."

Will stared, dumbly, and felt Elizabeth's fingers grip his arm tighter. "I don't understand."

"Yes you do."

"No," Will insisted. This was stupid, this was wasting time, and he _didn't_ understand. Didn't understand why they weren't leaving, or why Bill looked so bloody _calm_.

"Don't do this, Bill," Jack said suddenly, and there was something in his voice that Will had never heard there. "Don't do this. Please."

"Jack, you'd better go now." Bill had become the reasonable one all of a sudden, but it was oddly no more comforting than his raving had been earlier.

"Bill, this isn't going to change anything. This isn't going to make things right."

"I know, lad. Believe me, I know."

Will was shaking his head. Too much talking. There was too much talking and not enough getting done. They needed to act, needed to go. "Father…" He looked expectantly at Jack, waiting for the pirate captain to take things in hand, to lead, and make Bill listen, but Jack had gone still.

"Damn you, William," Jack said quietly.

Will had no time to dwell on why that got a dry chuckle out of his father before the clattering of many footsteps came at the top of the stairs, and Norrington's voice rang crisp and cold.

"No one move, unless you want to be shot here and now." This edict was followed by a pause, which was followed in turn by a startled, "_Elizabeth?"_

The addressed turned slowly to look up at him, and she offered a weak smile. "Couldn't stand the party any longer either, James?"

Astonishment, exasperation, and amusement wrestled each other, and Norrington's gun was lowered, ever so slightly. Noting Will's presence at her side in the next moment, the commodore sighed softly. "One day, I trust I _will_ cease to be surprised by anything the two of you do."

Upon spying Jack, however, all amusement was abandoned. "But not today, it seems." The gun, redirected slightly, came up once more. "Captain Sparrow. I'm _fascinated_ to know what brings you back to Port Royal."

**TBC**


	12. chapter eleven

Ta-daaa! Happy Thanksgiving all! (Or at least to my fellow turkey-consuming folks. Everyone else, Happy…Thursday.) Don't go into palpitations on me, guys, but here we have it! An update. And today, I'm thankful for anyone who's stuck with me through the update drought and comes back for more of this out-of-control little tale.

Characters belong, as always, to Don Mickey and the Disney Family, and I intend no disrespect in borrowing them.

……………………………….

Jack offered James Norrington a small, dry smile as the naval officer leveled his weapon at the pirate. "Splendid party, don't you think, mate? Seems everyone called on our two turtledoves here." Jack's mouth curled up a bit more as Norrington's eyes grew frostier. "Terribly rude of me not to say hello, I know, but it wouldn't have been very gracious to desert our lovely hostess before she'd tired of my company. Must say, dear Elizabeth's a right terror in her dancing shoes. I was starting to fear she was going to wear me out."

A small sigh escaped Will. "Jack," he scolded quietly.

"It was quite the occasion," Norrington concurred, stepping fluidly down the stairs. "Yet it seems the evening's real excitement was taking place right here, where I find my men containing a riot, my lieutenant rendered unconscious in his office, an escaped pirate trespassing…" his eyes moved to Twigg's body, "and a prisoner murdered in his cell." He stopped at the foot of the flight, and his face promised that there was more thunder to come before the night was through. "I should like very much to be enlightened on how these events are connected. Immediately."

Jack tilted his head coyly. "Escaped, am I? According to Miss Swann here, you let me get away."

"Jack, _must_ you?" Elizabeth demanded.

"If that were the case," Norrington replied, unruffled, "it would appear to have been a grievous mistake on my part."

Jack tsk'ed, shaking his head. "That wasn't an answer, Commodore."

"Make do with it, _Captain_." Norrington took a step closer, still sighting down his pistol at Jack. "Why is there a dead man in my prison?"

"Correct me if I'm mistaken, but he was on his way to dance for the hangman anyway, wasn't he?" He couldn't make it sound dismissive, but with a modicum of effort he achieved neutrality. Not that either was going to sway Norrington to an argument even Jack didn't buy, but maybe if he kept talking long enough, Bill would come to his senses and bolt.

What might have been mortification in someone who wasn't James Norrington breached the impenetrable green of the man's eyes, and, acutely curious about whatever image Norrington held of him that he'd just managed to fall short of, Jack filed the small slip away to be weighed and bitten and held up to the light later on.

"For all your flaws, Sparrow," and Norrington's tone made it clear there were plenty to go around, "I wouldn't have figured you the sort who would murder a caged man in cold blood."

"He isn't."

Jack slumped, and saw Elizabeth tighten her hold on Will.

The movement required to shift the pistol from Jack to the man who stepped up beside, and then very deliberately in front of, the pirate captain, was an almost invisible one, and Norrington made the adjustment while keeping nearly all signs of incredulousness at once again finding an obstructing body between him and Jack Sparrow from his face.

Bill moved forward, looking about as concerned over the gun pointing in his direction as he'd look over a bee flitting its way toward him. "Commodore, is it? I suppose you're the one I need to speak to, then." He held his bloodied arms out before him, offering his wrists to Norrington.

"Don't--" Will began, brokenly, before cutting himself off.

"My name is William Turner," Bill announced, in a tone far too composed to belong in the same room as a murder confession. "I'm the one who killed your prisoner."

It was supremely unfair, Jack decided, that circumstances were such that he wasn't even able to savor the look on James Norrington's face as the commodore joined the ranks of the painfully broadsided.

…………………………………

Wetherby Swann rose briskly from his seat and flung the carriage door open without waiting for the footman, stretching one long leg towards the ground.

That leg slid a bit as the rest of his body was jerked backwards, attached, as it was, to his head, atop which perched the swordfish mask. A lead off with the opposite leg proved no more successful in dislodging the insurrectional snout from the frame of the door, and Swann found himself twisting around until he was facing the carriage, mangling the menacing proboscis in the process, until his fumbling hand finally located the right strap and his head popped free, leaving the corkscrewed mask to dangle from the door, and sending him stumbling backwards into the footman, who prevented a spill to the mud-covered ground with quick hands at the governor's back. "Ah, thank you, Timothy," Swann said, patting the shorter man on the shoulder.

Then he tugged his wig straight and strode purposefully into the fort.

Whatever chaos had alighted on them this time, it appeared at least to not involve the horrific whistle-scream of cannon fire, or hoards of the undead swarming the streets. Weighed against that experience, whatever had disrupted Elizabeth and William's evening could hardly be that bad.

No sooner had the thought lodged itself between his ears than Swann rounded a corner and found himself face to face with Jack Sparrow.

"Oh, _balls_," Swann uttered, quite involuntarily.

"Lovely to see you as well, Governor."

"Keep quiet, Sparrow! Excuse me please, Governor," the redcoat who'd been hauling the shackled pirate down the corridor moved to bypass Swann, who stepped aside and stared, aghast, at the pirate's back.

Determined to track down Norrington and find out exactly what disaster had been averted – _God _almighty_, let it have been averted_ – Swann spun on his heel, and received his second rude surprise of the night.

Streaked and splattered neck to ankle in mud, her already insubstantial gown made rather more so by rainwater and lord only knew what nature of ill treatment, Elizabeth approached with Will at her side, her arm through his. "Elizabeth! You're soaked! And filthy! And _bleeding_! And – and--"

"And my knees are showing."

"_Yes!_"

She nodded tiredly. "Fortunately for us, I've been wet and half-naked in front of most everyone here before, so there should be very little shock this time around."

"Elizabeth, I see nothing even remotely funny about…about…" he faltered in his tirade as his gaze drifted to Will, who, Swann was just realizing, looked pale in a way that had nothing to do with his painted face. In fact he looked a great deal worse off than the muddied and bloodied Elizabeth. "Goodness, William, are you quite all right?"

Will gave a start, his eyes snapping to Swann's as if he'd only just noticed him standing there. "I…I'll be fine, sir, thank you."

Swann frowned, exchanging a glance with his daughter, who brought her free hand up to cover Will's, which, all three of them noticed at once, was shaking almost imperceptibly on her arm.

Wetherby Swann moved forward, not to Elizabeth, but to flank Will opposite her, laying a cautious touch on the young man's back. "What's happened here?" he demanded quietly, looking from one to the other.

Elizabeth opened her mouth, and grasped for a place to begin. "There was…" her mind discarded the word "accident" before it made it to her mouth. The truth wasn't pliable enough to be twisted so. She looked up at her father, her face pained. "It was a mistake, Father. It was a horrible mistake. Nobody knew…"

Will drew in a ragged breath, and Elizabeth and her father both turned sharply to follow his gaze.

Norrington approached from the end of the hall, his gait unfaltering, despite the troubled set of his mouth. Beside him, manacled hand and foot, walked Bill Turner. A half-dozen marines trailed them in formation.

"All right," Swann uttered tightly, no more enlightened but a great deal more frustrated. "I want someone to tell me what's gone on here."

Norrington ushered his stoic captive past them, eyes carefully forward to avoid snagging his resolve on Will Turner's jagged anguish. "That's exactly what I mean to find out, sir," he replied.

…………………….

Fifteen minutes later, Norrington was gaining the clear picture he'd sought, and he liked it less with every brushstroke that emerged.

"What I still lack comprehension of, Lieutenant, is how one lone man was able to penetrate deep enough into Fort Charles to murder our prisoners at his leisure. This is a stronghold of the Royal Navy, not a tent in a traveling circus. People do not just walk into the prison and _start stabbing_." When he'd mastered his tone once more, Norrington continued. "As I already have a fair idea of how Mr. Turner knew where to find the cells, I suppose the crux of my puzzlement is how he got past the guards posted there. As you are, thus far, the only person to be found incapacitated, I presume he did not use force on them."

Lieutenant Gillette stood at attention before him, the upper left quarter of his face a spectacular shade of indigo, the rest of it slowly reddening.

"Have you any theories on how he accomplished this, Lieutenant?"

If possible, Gillette's lips pressed themselves thinner yet before parting in response. "Sir, there was trouble with the other prisoners. There was unrest stirring all night, and fights were breaking out. My first concern was with reestablishing order there, before things got too out of hand. The captives from the _Black Pearl_ were subdued at the time, sir. I had no reason to suspect anything was amiss with them."

"No reason for suspicion outside of a man you did not know asking pressing questions about their state, you mean?" Someone else might have paced while they inquired. If James Norrington's agitations were currently manifesting themselves, they were being very discrete about it.

"Sir, he was distraught when I spoke to him earlier. Timid, even. Had the culprit given me any indication at the time that he was possessed of ill intentions, I would certainly have detained him."

"Relieved as I am to hear you would not have stood aside and wished him good day had he announced that he planned to come here collecting heads and hides, my interest does not lie with that conversation at the moment, Lieutenant." He knew he ought to have refrained from the sarcasm, but Gillette could draw it from him like a lancet drew blood. "Who was posted on the corridor Turner breached?"

Gillette's functioning eye flickered from Norrington's face when he answered. "Murtogg and Kelley."

"Murtogg and Kelley." Norrington's expression didn't change. "And yet both of them were among those who came up from the west corridor."

"Yes, sir," Gillette replied, an edge emerging in his voice. "Where the prisoners were becoming increasingly rowdy and violent, as I explained already."

Norrington's hands, clasped behind his back, itched to tighten on themselves. "Lieutenant Gillette, did you pull the guards off the corridor where the _Black Pearl's_ crew is held?"

"Sir, I was attempting to gain control of a blatantly volatile situation--"

"I didn't ask for exposition, Lieutenant. I require nothing more from you than a yes, or a no." It brought Norrington a bare step closer, and silenced the other man. "On your orders, was the eastern corridor left unguarded tonight?"

Gillette's chin lifted, and it seemed he had to pry his teeth apart to answer. "Yes, sir."

James Norrington was not a man given to rages, or inappropriate bursts of temper, even in the worst of times. Those were simply reactions, and reactions without purpose accomplished nothing, no matter how agreeable they felt as they were pouring forth. Anger didn't solve problems or undo damage, and it was therefore a luxury his duty didn't allow for. And so his voice wasn't raised when he addressed Gillette again.

"I'm appalled at the lack of discretion you've exercised tonight, Lieutenant. Report to the infirmary and have your face tended to."

Gillette came as close to sneering as he could without being openly disrespectful. "There's no need, sir. I shall be quite all right."

It was a bloody good thing duty didn't allow for the luxury of anger. A bloody good thing indeed, or Norrington might have taken that bruising nose between his fingers and given it a good solid twist to see just how convinced Gillette was that the infirmary was unnecessary.

Duty. Dignity. God _damn_ it, he needed a holiday.

"In that event, you will report to the west corridor and aid in the removal of the late Mr. Twigg's body, and assist in any clean-up required afterwards."

If it hadn't been swollen nearly shut, Gillette's left eye would have joined his right in nearly bulging out of his face. "But Commodore--"

"If you take issue with having to see the body disposed of, Gillette, perhaps you will think at some length as to your part in putting it there," Norrington said, and this time it _was_ sharp. He'd had enough, and he wasn't even close to seeing the end of this night.

Indignant, Gillette forgot himself. "Commodore Norrington, I protest that! I had no way of knowing what that man was planning!"

"That isn't the point!" He barked it harshly, in spite of his best efforts to keep the oil from the fire. "Turner had the drive and desire to commit this act, but he required the opportunity. You gave him one. Your actions today made his possible." He cut himself off then, taking a deep breath. "You have your orders, Gillette. You may go."

For a moment he thought Gillette was going to argue further. But though he looked as if he had to physically choke back the words, Gillette was silent. Fuming, but silent, and he remained that way as he saluted and took himself from the room.

After he'd gone, Norrington made for the door opposite the one Gillette had taken. He paused with his hand on the knob to collect himself.

Next time he went to a party he was getting good and pissed straight off.

………………………………

Elizabeth looked up sharply as James emerged from his office into the adjacent room where she waited with Will and her father. Wetherby Swann was on his feet the instant the door opened, but Will didn't move from his chair, and he made no attempt to unlace his hands from Elizabeth's.

"What did he have to say?" Swann demanded.

Elizabeth could see wrath cracking James' ice from below, but he didn't waiver in his reply. "Gillette took the guards from their post on the pirates' cells and sent them to help quell the ruckus the other prisoners were raising." He looked askance at Will before continuing. "It presented Mr. Turner with a sufficient window of time to…gain access to the pirates." Though his shoulders remained squared, something in his air sagged. "There was no one to stop him."

Will's face pinched anew with grief, and Elizabeth pulled their joined hands beneath her chin.

"Gillette will face a disrating for this," James uttered, speaking to all of them, but singling out Will with his gaze. The younger man shook his head.

"This wasn't his doing," Will finally said.

"It was his negligence," James replied firmly. "That hall is not to be unguarded for _any_ reason. Assuring that the prisoners cannot get out is only half the reason for that security, and if Gillette hadn't been so _damned_ complacent--" he caught himself, and held a hand up, eyes closing in frustration. "I beg your pardon, Elizabeth."

One side of her mouth lifted weakly. "Curse away, James. I think we'll all take our comfort wherever we can find it today."

"Then I will take mine from the knowledge that my lieutenant will begin learning some much-needed humility tonight." James laughed mirthlessly then. "Though it seems he's not the only one who's been oblivious, as I was unknowingly dining and dancing in the company of Jack Sparrow tonight. This is hardly a banner evening for the navy, is it?"

"Yes, well, I wouldn't chastise myself too harshly, were I you, James," Wetherby Swann suggested, taking slow strides to the stand behind Elizabeth's chair. He laid his hands on her shoulders, and Elizabeth sucked her cheek between her teeth and scrutinized her bare, muddy toes very intently. "If there is one thing I am quite nearly certain of, in this entire horrid tangle of events, it is that Captain Sparrow did not single-handedly conceal his presence in Port Royal, and he didn't steal undetected and uninvited into the masque." His gaze dropped to the top of his daughter's head, and he squeezed her shoulders lightly – and deliberately. "Did he, duckling?"

Elizabeth shared a guilty look with her betrothed, who was not plunged so deeply into his own misery he couldn't squirm a bit along with her, then smiled hopefully up at her father. "You did stress the importance of including our peers in our wedding celebration, Father," she reminded him, beaming with the same sort of radiance Swann suspected Lucifer Morningstar had shone with right before he'd been relocated.

"Elizabeth--"

"If it weren't for Jack, Father, one or both of us would be a bit too dead to have an engagement party for him to sneak into!"

He was about to be shamed for protesting a wanted criminal's presence in his house. He saw it coming. Unfortunately, anticipation of this particular move on Elizabeth's part didn't come with a way to counter it, because she was, ultimately, correct.

Somewhere, his wife was laughing.

"And am I to believe that Sparrow had no part in what happened here tonight?" James asked, with surprisingly little scorn. "Whatever I think or would like to think of his character…" James spread his hands before him. "It's hard to conceive of _such_ a coincidence."

"Jack had nothing to do with this!" There was steel in Will's assertion, and his despondency slid from him in the blink of an eye. "You have my word on this, Commodore, Governor. Jack has been with Elizabeth and I for days now. He didn't know himself that my father was alive until earlier this very day! He didn't have anything to do with what took place here – except to stop it from being even more of a bloodbath than it was!" Will stepped forward, breaking away from Elizabeth, shaking his head. "Don't punish Jack for what my…my father has done."

All three of them were taken back by the ferocity of Will's defense, and it was Swann who recovered first.

"It doesn't make much sense for Sparrow to risk his neck coming back here after he's been let go, all for the sake of murdering men who are already awaiting death," the governor conceded.

"No, but neither does it make much sense for a man to plan something as carefully as William Turner must have planned this attack, and then step up neat as you please and turn himself in without a struggle." Norrington replied.

Will's fire died back a bit, and he wrapped his arms around himself. "His reason for wanting them dead was gone," he said quietly. "That's why he stopped." He bowed his head, swallowing painfully. "It was because of me, and of Jack. He thought we were dead. He thought they killed us." Will looked up at them again, and saw pity, and doubt, in both men's eyes. He wasn't sure which emotion he hated more. "That's why he did it. All of it."

James pressed his lips together, green eyes hard, as they always looked when he was considering the wisest way to wage a battle. Governor Swann sighed.

"Well, I'll tell you all one thing," he said, resolved. "I won't be convinced of _anything_ until I've spoken with William Turner."

……………………………

Jack leaned his shoulder against the wall, staring through the barred window at the storm clouds rolling away on the night wind, watching as a few of the stars came back, burning bright and bold through the last remnants of the tempest.

What did they care how hard it rained? They were too high to get wet.

"I know what you're thinking."

There was, somehow, nothing presumptuous in the voice that rolled deep and quiet out of the gloom behind him, but it made anger flutter its wings inside Jack all the same.

"How enlightened, given _I_ don't know what I'm thinking."

He turned his back on the window, rolling to put the stone wall behind him, and looked to where Bill sat, arms shackled to the heavy wooden table in the center of the room the two of them had been locked in.

"You think this is a stupid thing for me to be doing."

Jack snorted, his own chains rattling where they hung against his thighs. "That isn't a thought. It's a fact."

"Hell bent as ever to have things go your way, aren't you?" Bill's face was too shadowed to let his expression be read, but his shoulders quaked once in dry mirth. "I suppose I should have known you'd survive what Barbossa did to you just to be contrary." He rubbed a finger along the grain of the wood beneath his hands. "How did he die?"

Jack took a moment to pretend he hadn't heard the eagerness in that question before answering it. "By the very same shot he was generous enough to give me as a parting gift when he escorted me off my ship."

"It was you?"

Sensing more than seeing the gaze on him, Jack nodded. "Yes."

"Was it quick?"

"Very."

"Pity. Did you at least have time to enjoy it?"

The silence nearly shook the mortar out from between the stones.

"I'm sorry," Bill breathed. "That was a disgusting thing to say."

"Maybe," Jack replied, grateful to be able to conceal his face in the murk of the room. "But then I'm not really comfortable takin' the moral high ground. Gives me nosebleeds." He scuffed the heel of his boot across the floor. "Besides, I expect you're entitled to a few uncharitable notions where Barbossa's concerned."

"Uncharitable," Bill echoed. "What a tidy word that is. I had enough 'uncharitable notions' in mind for him to put me ankle deep in his blood."

Jack twisted the length of chain connecting his hands, scowling at the ugly, ponderous links as they caught the meager lamplight. "Aye, well, I guess he'd have deserved them all."

Bill contemplated the younger man, and sounded awed when he spoke. "It humbles me, lad, that you can say that and still not mean it, after all the evil he did you."

"Don't do that," Jack snapped, brandishing a wicked glare. "Don't make it sound like I was some wronged, hapless innocent in the whole thing." He flexed his wrists, wincing at the chafe of the iron. "I brought him and his whole thrice-damned pack of dogs onto the _Pearl_." He slouched, letting his hair fall across his face. "I invited them in. Held the door. Put the bloody kettle on, even.""

"You were young," Bill said, without malice. "You made a mistake."

"I was Captain, and I made a choice!" Jack slid down to sit against the wall, staring up at Bill. "It was my doing, William. It was my fault." He shook his head. "It was me owed the piper all by me onesies, and I explicitly told you not to do anything stupid! How the bleedin' fuck that translated to 'open your gob and get yourself flung off the port side by the homicidal mutineer' I have _no_ idea, and I speak twice as many bloody languages as you!" He was quivering by the time he finished, and Bill waited until he was sure Jack was going to exhale and not simply combust.

"It was actually the starboard side," he corrected, lips twitching. "And I wasn't so much flung as pushed."

"Oh, Jesus," Jack groaned, curling in on himself and turning away, pressing his forehead against the wall. His body jerked once, hard, and Bill wasn't sure if he was crying or trying not to be sick. Reflexively, Bill moved to rise, and his chains reminded him of their presence with a rattle and a jarring snap.

"Jack, are you all right?" he pressed.

The pirate's head swiveled back towards him, mouth agape, dark eyes glittering over-brightly with grief. "Are you fucking _drugged_, William?" An incredulous laugh slipped out, and it shook the tears loose. That Jack made no attempt to conceal them spoke volumes to Bill. He pushed himself to his feet and stalked towards the older man. "They're going to hang you! Six hours ago I was telling your son how his father wasn't so very dead after all, and he was wondering what the first thing he was going to say to you would be, and now they're going to haul you off and swing you from the scaffold like some kind of damned murderer--"

"I _am_ a murderer, Jack."

"I don't _care_!" Jack choked, almost shouting, and brought his shackles down on the wooden table with a violent crack. "You're here, and you're alive, and I don't give a damn what else you are!"

Bill moistened his lips, and met Jack's fury with more calm. "I think my son might not share that view on things, Jack."

"Well we aren't goin' to have the chance to find out now, are we?" Jack was flinging his chains about so emphatically Bill was beginning to fear for his wrist bones. "Why couldn't you have given him the chance to forgive you? He might've surprised you, Bill. He has quite a gift for that. Not that you'll find that out, either."

"Jack--"

"God, I hate your honor," Jack breathed, voice breaking. "I hate that you can't ever shut up and keep your bloody head down. Why do you have to try to make everything _right_? You live and breathe by your goddamned honor, and never mind what the rest of us need. Never mind that we keep getting left behind…" It was one crack more than the dam could survive, and Jack doubled over, catching himself on the table and sinking to his knees.

Bill had enough freedom of movement to slide a hand beneath the slick cheek resting on the table, and he felt the flutter of wet lashes against his palm, the warmth of each shuddering breath on his fingers. The fingers of his other hand combed at what hair they could reach.

"I'm sorry," Jack gasped out, a fresh flood of tears soaking Bill's hand. "I'm so sorry I failed you, but you can't leave me again, Bill. You can't."

The hand cradling Jack's cheek convulsed, and Bill leaned his face low, his words murmured against the side of Jack's head. "You listen to me, Jack Sparrow. You have never failed me. Never You were a good captain, and damn that son of a bitch all over again if he _ever_ made you doubt that. You didn't fail me. You didn't disappoint me. And if I hang tomorrow, I'll go with the peace of knowing both of my sons are alive and well." The weight Bill held nearly shook itself loose then, but the slightest curl of his fingers and press of his lips secured his hold, and he rode out the rocking as he would a rough sea.

Bill straightened expectantly when he heard voices outside the door, but although Jack's breath hitched at the click of the key in the lock, he didn't move. He did open aching eyes at the sound of Norrington's voice.

"On your feet, Sparrow." It may only have been the fading thrum of his own blood in his ears, but it seemed to Jack the command was not as brisk as it should have been. "Lieutenant Groves will accompany you out. Governor Swann wishes to speak with Mister Turner."

"Up you go, Captain," Bill said quietly as the younger man stood without argument, and raised his hands to wipe his face dry without shame. Groves waited until Jack had finished the motion to take him by the arm.

"This way please, Captain Sparrow," Groves said.

Jack stared brazenly at the governor and the commodore through the lingering glaze of his tears as Groves walked him past, and had the satisfaction of both of them looking away first. Just inside the door he hesitated, lifting his chin as he addressed the governor.

"You mustn't believe a word he says, guv. He's a pirate, after all." He threw a half-smile back in Bill's direction. "Bloody liars, the lot of us."

Swann looked affronted, and Norrington rolled his eyes. But behind him, Bill chuckled earnestly. The sound followed Jack out into the hall until the closing of the door cut it off.

TBC 


	13. chapter twelve

Greetings, all! I have not in fact been eaten my sea monsters or abducted by aliens or dropped through a wormhole, and the next chapter is here.

Big, huge, giant, fluffy thank you's to everyone who's sent me feedback on this. If I haven't e-mailed you back to say thank you, know that I'm still working on it. You may or may not have noticed this slight tendency of mine to lag a bit behind on the completion of extracurricular activities. Or, in other words, it's not personal and I'm grateful for each and every piece of feedback that I get, but I am in fact a disorganized dumbass, and if you don't believe me, come look at my desk. I have birthday presents on it for people whose birthdays were in December and March.

So…where are we? Characters are the property of the Holy Rodent Empire, and I make no profit in playing with them. There's still strong language, violence (though it's more referred to than acted out in this chapter), and themes not to be viewed by the immature and impressionable. So all you little dears poking around here in the M-rated reading section…piss off before I call your mothers and tell them what you're doing.

THE WEIGHT OF WATER

virgo79

Wetherby Swann studied the man chained in place before him as Norrington lit several other lanterns, better illuminating the barren room. He waited for the light to show him undisguised evil, or subdued madness. When it revealed nothing more than a man with bloodstained hands and dark eyes netted in weary lines, Swann wasn't certain if he was relieved or not. Evil or madness would have made at least one part of what was to come easier.

"Mr. William Turner the elder, I'm told?"

Turner's head lifted. "Aye." His eyes, sharp and aware for all their weariness, scrutinized the governor intently. "You say your name is Swann?"

"That's right," he affirmed, uncertain why it mattered.

"You're kin to my William's lady, are you?"

Taken back by Turner's canniness, it took Swann a moment to respond. "Elizabeth is my daughter."

"Your daughter," Turner echoed, and something about it seemed to please him. "And how did a cutthroat's son come to be engaged to a governor's daughter?"

This was not the conversation Swann had expected to have, yet he found himself giving William Turner an answer, instead of demanding his own. "By first being her friend, for many years."

"And you approve of the union?" At Swann's hesitation, Turner smiled, and opened his hands where they lay shackled to the table. "You've nothing to fear in telling the truth, mate, even if I _were_ inclined to take offense."

"He was…not the match I would have chosen for her," Swann confessed, painfully aware of James Norrington's presence behind him. He had no desire to prod at a wound, healed though it may be. "But he is a fine young man, and he makes her happy. They love each other. And they have faced more formidable things in recent months than society's disapproval. I've learned to…redefine what constitutes harm."

"I understand," Turner stated quietly. "You only wanted what was best for your child." He glanced down at his hands, and scraped his left thumb over his right palm, flaking off some of the blood that had dried there. "I expect there are some things you're wantin' to make sense of, Governor."

"Indeed," Swann replied. "Though I scarcely know where to begin, Mr. Turner. This morning I believed my future son-in-law to be an orphan."

"And now you wish he was, I imagine." Bill Turner chuckled slightly at the look that comment earned him. "Don't mince words on my account, mate. I'm the one who's made the mess here. Say what's on your mind."

Somberly, Swann obliged him. "Very well. You assaulted an officer of His Majesty's Navy and committed murder tonight, Mr. Turner. You should already be in a cell with a gallows view."

Turner nodded. "All true. Yet here we sit."

Swann shifted his weight on the hard wooden chair, as if to better bear the burden he found himself saddled with. "I will not see young William robbed of his father a second time without understanding why and how all of this has come to pass. The boy has suffered enough loss in his life. I would very much like a reason to spare him any more. But it would have to be a very good reason, Mr. Turner, and it falls to you now to provide it."

It was the chained man's turn now to be taken back, and he raised his eyebrows. "You're a most unconventional man of the law, Governor Swann. But as much as I appreciate the opportunity to speak for myself, I'm not sure what you expect to hear."

"Neither am I, Mr. Turner."

"If I may be so bold as to put forth a question," the cool voice of James Norrington interjected, "perhaps Mr. Turner could begin by explaining where he's been all these years Will has believed him dead." The commodore stepped closer to the table, eyes leached of all color in the shadows of the room.

Bill Turner's gaze shifted to Norrington. "Do you know what those men you have in your prison used to be, Commodore? The men who crewed the _Black Pearl_?"

Norrington smiled grimly. "Greater in number," he offered, and Bill Turner let out a bark of knife-edged laughter.

"If we'd met under other circumstances, lad, I could like you. But that's not what I meant, and I think you know it."

"If you're speaking of their…affliction…then yes, we know of it."

"Their _affliction_. God's teeth, lad, you make it sound like the pox. Can you not bring yourself to call them undead? Can't you say the word 'curse', even after you've seen the proof of it?"

"They were walking nightmares," Wetherby Swann said sharply, drawing the attention of both Turner and Norrington back to him, and his hands were white-knuckled on the edge of the table as he spoke.

Turner nodded. "That they were," he agreed. "And I was one of them."

"They were mutineers," Norrington said, clearly finding this a far more damnable state than being undead. "They betrayed their captain. Were you a part of that as well?"

Bill Turner leveled Norrington with a look that brought the younger man's hand involuntarily to his sword hilt. "I was not. But I didn't act to stop it, either." Turner failed to meet the gaze of either of the other men for the first time. "Jack Sparrow said I owed my wife and my son too much to go into the sea alongside him. So I stood aside during the mutiny." He had to force his hands loose of the fists they wanted to curl into, and a shudder wracked him as he remembered. "They beat him until he couldn't stand. He was spitting blood when Barbossa threw him overboard. I could scarcely believe it when he made it to land. I…I had no hope that he would survive in that place, alone, injured as he was."

"I'm beginning to think Death is avoiding its appointments with Sparrow," Norrington muttered. "Hardly surprising, really."

A small, pensive frown pinched Swann's brows as he regarded Bill Turner. "He was a good friend of yours?"

"As dear to me as my own flesh and blood," Turner replied. "Jack was scarcely more than a child when I met him. After I'd had to leave my own son. My Will. I thought…" his voice failed him briefly, and he closed his eyes until he regained it. "I thought after a time that he was my second chance." He shook his head. "Then came Barbossa. And I did no better by Jack than I did Will. I couldn't stop the mutiny." He lifted his head to look into Swann's eyes once again, and the governor was suddenly very grateful for the fact that Turner was bound. "All I could do was make sure they suffered. I learned the workings of the curse we'd brought down on ourselves before they did. I found out how to lift it. And then I made bloody sure Barbossa would never have what he needed to do so. Their freedom was far out of reach before they even knew what they were looking for." He leaned back in his seat, looking to Swann like a man pushing himself back from a satisfying meal. "I sent the single coin I had taken to Will, in England. To the child none of them even knew I had."

The satisfaction ebbed then, leaving Bill Turner's face still and haunted. "How or where they learned that…I can't say. There were few, beyond Jack, that knew. Fewer still now, given that Barbossa found out. When he perceived a thing had served its purpose, he disposed of it."

"A rash philosophy," Norrington commented.

Dark eyes glittered up at him, and a smile crept onto Turner's face. It wasn't an expression James could remember Will wearing, but the resemblance backhanded him, nonetheless. "You've no idea, Commodore."

"What happened then?" Swann asked. "He must have learned what you'd done."

"Oh, he did indeed. I told him."

Once again, Bill couldn't quite refrain from a chuckle at the expression that seized Swann's face.

"You _told_ him? What in God's name for?"

Turner caught his bottom lip between his teeth contemplatively. His voice was almost serene when he answered. "So I could see the last hope he held on to die in his eyes. So he would know who had condemned him, and why."

As compelled as he was horrified, Swann pressed for more. "What did he do to you?"

"I sent him to his hell," Turner reflected, sounding far away, as if he spoke from whatever place and time his eyes were fixed on, "and he sent me to mine. A hundred fathoms straight down into absolute darkness, strapped to a cannon. No way to judge how fast I was sinking, save for how long it took the light above me to fade. It wasn't a very sunny day, or that might've taken longer." With some effort, he pulled himself away from the past to rejoin his interrogators. "Evil prick couldn't even send me to the bottom of the sea on a sunny day." His shoulders shook once with dry laughter.

Wetherby Swann had gone ashy. "He meant for the depth to kill you?"

"Oh, God only knows what he was thinking, _if_ he was thinking," Bill tossed out scathingly. "The most forethought Barbossa ever gave anything in his life was which way to point himself so he wasn't pissin' into the wind." Turner hesitated, studying the patterns of dried blood in the creases of his palms. "That," he said after a space, "and how to slither into the confidences of a young captain with a swift ship."

"What happened to you then?" Swann pressed, almost in a whisper.

"Very little," Turner replied shortly. "As it turns out, there isn't a fat lot to do at the bottom of the sea besides drown or cave in on your own organs, and when immortality has eliminated those options…" Turner shook his head, and warred with a shiver that bested him. "I endured, Governor. I drifted on my tether in night that never lifted, in silence so thick I couldn't even hear myself screaming through it, and I went _on_. And when I'd gone so long without sound or sight or sensation you couldn't even have proved to me I still had _form_ anymore, I knew I was still me by the hate twistin' through me for Hector Barbossa. I would've suffered a thousand years gladly at the bottom of the sea, knowing he was suffering just the same atop of it. Though truth be told," and here something seemed to amuse him, "I was down there long enough I stopped minding. I don't know if that's what you'd call adaptation," Turner mused, "or if I just finally lost my soddin' mind. Either way…even hell loses its horror, after a while. And in the dark, at least, I never found myself looking through my own bones. I'd rather have nightmares than be one any day of the week."

Norrington had gravitated closer during the telling of the tale, his detachment waning slightly, captivated and appalled in spite of himself. "But you _did_ escape eventually."

"Not as such," Turner countered. "Escape implies an effort being put forth; I was just there when the bindings rotted away. I wasn't really paying attention at that point, mind you. I didn't realize it had happened until I found myself washed up on a beach, daylight pouring down just as bright as you please."

"What a world of relief that must have been," Swann breathed.

Turner ducked his head enough to scratch his chin. "It was drier," he ceded. At the governor's obvious bafflement, he elaborated. "One day I was a monster underwater, and the next I was a monster on land. I had nowhere to go, Governor. Nowhere that mattered. And Will and Cathleen…" he trailed off, wrestling with the words. "I would have walked straight back into the sea before I'd have let them see me as that…thing." He stared into the glow of the nearest lantern, a glaze to his eyes that was more than fatigue. "That was the only grace left to me. Knowing that my son was on the other side of the world, safe. Growing up. Remembering me the way I'd been before. I could even bear the sight of myself in the moonlight when I stopped to think that the worst memory Will would have of me was…gettin' a swat across his rear end for lightin' candles without his mother or me in the room or gettin' sent to bed when he didn't want to go--"

Bill's voice cracked then, and he stifled a sob against his knuckles, breathing roughly as he composed himself. Swann found himself staring down at his own hands in his lap, looking anywhere but at Bill Turner until he heard the man start speaking again.

"I was content with that. I could have let the years go on, knowing my son was all right. Knowing Jack's betrayers were being punished. It wasn't a life…but whatever it was, I could have lived with it."

This time, it seemed, Turner wasn't going to be able to overcome the silence that had seized him without some prompting. Swann moved his chair nearer to the table, bringing himself face-to-face with the other man. "What changed, Mr. Turner? What brought you here?"

Bill pressed all ten fingertips to the table, watching the way the blood flow changed beneath his nails. "I was standing in a doorway, on some island I barely spoke the language of, watching the moonlight move towards me, wondering if I'd bother to step aside or if I'd just stay put and let the locals scream." He turned his arms over in their chains, studying the blue trails of veins in his wrists. "And my heart started to beat. I began breathing again. I walked out into that moonlight…and I was human." He bent his hands back at the wrists, stretching the skin and bringing the blood vessels into sharper definition. "I've never felt anything like what I felt the moment I realized the curse was lifted. It was worse than when I sailed away from my wife and child, or realized I was in the middle of a mutiny, or felt the pull of that cannon when it went over the side of the _Pearl_. Because even when I was missing my family so much I thought it would tear me down the middle… even when I was mourning Jack…even when I was sitting swallowed and alone at the bottom of the sea…I had hope."

Turner curled his bloody hands into fists and lifted to Wetherby Swann , at last, a killer's face.

"I lost my hope that night, in that doorway. All of my hope. Because I knew Hector Barbossa had found my son."

Swann sagged in his chair, his heart turning over in his chest. "Of course. Of course you would think William was dead."

Bill moistened his lips, the lines of his body rigid with the pain of memory. "Your question, Governor Swann, was what brought me here. To this place. To this state."

"You wanted revenge," Norrington supplied, quietly. "Against men already slated to die." No sooner was it out of his mouth then Bill turned on him.

"Don't say that like you understand what it means, boy," Turner growled at the uniformed man. "You hung those bastards. You didn't know them. That man whose blood is being drunk down by the mortar in your jail even as we speak? That was Leland Twigg. That creature had himself a taste for children." He watched Norrington swallow the information dryly. "On the odd occasion he'd take a liking to something older than fourteen." Turner spit the words out like they burned his mouth, quivering in his seat with the turbulence of something rising up inside him.

"You know the last thing Barbossa said to me, Governor, before he had me dropped into the drink? He leans over and says right in my ear, '_Bootstrap. I wish I had known what good mates you were, you and Jack. I would have given him to Twigg. I would have given him to Twigg,_' he says, '_and I would have made you watch._'"

Swann caught his own horrified exhalation of breath in the palm of the hand that covered his mouth. Minutely, Bill Turner nodded.

"These were the people who'd found my William," he said. "Can you imagine the kind of death I pictured for my son, Governor? Do you have any idea what I envisioned him going through, before they took what they needed from him? Can you imagine it," Bill choked out, a tear tracing down his rage-ravaged face, "or do you need me to describe it to you?"

The hand at his mouth dropped to his heart, and Swann shook his head. "No," he said softly, remembering the scent of gunpowder hanging thickly in his home, and the way his relief that Elizabeth's was not one of the bodies had given way to the nauseating realization she wasn't there at all. "No."

"I came here for Barbossa," Turner went on, fingering a chain link. "From that first damned breath, the only thing that made me put one foot in front of the other was the thought of what I'd do to him, when I found him. This place was a stepping stone. Or so I intended." He gestured towards the door with his head. "The only thing I needed from the rest of them was a direction. Instead they had the… _misfortune_ of delivering news of his death to me."

A gust of wind, leftover from the evening's storm, ghosted chill and swift in through the window just then, quenching several of the lantern-flames and scenting the room with rain and smoke.

"Blast," Norrington muttered, moving to re-light the smothered lamps.

In the renewed illumination, Wetherby Swann looked again on the pirate sitting before him, wearing blood and chains, and found something odd had happened. The lamps didn't reveal the same room, or the same man, that they had only moments before. The walls were not quite as close as they had been, and the table not quite so wide. The distance from one side of it to the other had diminished in the dark.

And the man who sat across it, Swann discovered with a pang, was frighteningly familiar.

"You aren't sorry, are you, Mr. Turner?" Swann asked, and it wasn't really any more of a condemnation than it was a question.

The bound man smiled, tiredly. "Of course I am, mate. I'm sorry for more things than I could make a list of in seven years at the bottom of the sea."

"But not for the death you were responsible for tonight."

Bill's thumb buffed at a tarnished spot on one of the chains. "No. I'm not sorry for that."

Long fingers laced themselves together pensively on the tabletop. They were cleaner than Bill Turner's, and less calloused. But Swann thought they had probably fit much the same around littler hands, once. "You would have killed them all if Will and Jack Sparrow hadn't stopped you, wouldn't you?"

The tired smile found a little more strength, though it lost none of its sorrow. "Every last one."

Swann nodded. "All right then," he said, softly. "All right then." He rose from his chair, feeling heavier than he had when he'd sat down. "I thank you for your candor, Mr. Turner. I…can't say it makes any of this easier…but it's what I needed to know."

Turner's head dipped just once, in acknowledgement. "Whatever you choose to do with it, Governor Swann, it was good of you to hear me out."

Bill moistened lips gone suddenly dry then, and he voiced his first and only plea of the night. "Might I…might I speak with my son now?"

"Of course," Swann said, immediately. "I'll send him."

"Only--" Bill broke off, the thought stinging. "Only if he wants to."

Wetherby Swann felt his own throat tighten. He and Elizabeth had locked horns in their time, but never, _never_ had he had cause to fear she'd despised him for anything he'd done. She had stomped, slammed, cried, and swore –actually she'd sworn a few times more often than she'd cried, despite the mouthfuls of imported, perfumed soap – but she'd never despised him.

"I'll let him know he can come," he amended, "if he wishes. And I'll have some water brought in, so you can…tidy up."

Bill might, under other circumstances, have gotten a laugh out of someone referring to scrubbing off the splashings of a murder as "tidying up", but today, he was too grateful to be amused. "Thank you."

Just before Swann stepped through the door, Turner's voice halted him, one last time.

"You strike me as a good sort, Governor Swann," the pirate said, eyes twinkling faintly as the stars through the clouds, outside the cell window. "I approve entirely of the family Will's marrying into."

Caught off guard, it took Swann a moment, but he thought he recovered quite swiftly. "What a relief," he replied, wryly.

…………………………

A guard locked the door after Swann and James Norrington had emerged.

"I wouldn't have thought it possible to get so clean a confession to something so bloody." James marveled. He shook his head, still reeling. "Will's father. Good God."

He got no response, and glanced over to see Swann, powder-pale and leaning against the corridor wall, lips agape as if he'd frozen in the act of speaking. "Sir?" James queried, concerned.

Swann seemed to drag his focus up to Norrington. "What a terrible thing it must be," he uttered finally, "mourning your child."

Norrington approached him, green eyes troubled. "Unquestionably, sir," he agreed. "But there are things even grief that terrible cannot excuse."

"How could you bear it?" Swann went on as if James hadn't spoken, one hand tossed absently, imploringly, into the air. "How could you not go mad?"

"Sir, with all respect," Norrington ventured, "I think you need to take a step back from this. I can certainly sympathize with what the man's gone through--"

"Can you, James?" Swann broke in. "Can you really? You'll have to forgive me if I doubt that." He pinned the startled officer with a look that burned. "Even I can't fathom what that man went through. When Elizabeth was taken, I could hardly breathe for fear of what might be happening to her. It was agony, James, wondering if I'd ever see her again, but as horrible as it was, it wasn't the same as what that man in there went through." He stabbed a rigid finger towards the door. "There, but for the grace of God, James. Elizabeth was returned to me, and I never had to find out what I would have done in that man's place. If I'd ever believed she was gone…truly gone…" He shook his head, rubbing at one temple. "I just don't know. I don't know what I might have done, and if I don't know that…" He leaned back against the wall, hands laid together and pressed against his mouth. "How can I put to death someone that I could have been, James?" Swann demanded, torment straining his voice. "How can I do that, when I still sometimes dream that she didn't come home?"

He looked away then, and James found he didn't want to know what it was the other man was seeing that stole the blood from his face. He had no answer for his old friend, so he made no attempt at one.

His voice wasn't the one that would carry this time, anyway. Even without any discussion of it, James knew that much. For better or for worse, the burden of choice had been taken from him, silently, when they had taken their places to hear a murderer's story. Wetherby Swann would be the one to decide Bill Turner's fate.

"Shall I go and get Will?" James offered gently. The older man shook his head in refusal.

"No. I'll do it." He straightened, wearily. "If you would, however, please see about getting Mr. Turner some wash water." He moved past Norrington slowly, as if he ached. "This won't be a conversation he'll want to have covered in that dog's blood."

………………………..

Bill scrubbed his nails vigorously against the palms of his hands, and soaped his arms to the elbows before rinsing the rusty red lather off in the large basin one of the marines had brought to him. Commodore Norrington had accompanied the guard, and as soap, water, and linens were laid out on the table, the commodore had produced a key and unlocked Bill's shackles.

"I'm not going to put you back in these before your son comes in, Mr. Turner, and I'm going to allow the two of you your privacy," Norrington had informed him, briskly. "But the corridor beyond this room will be filled with armed men. Do not make me regret the allowance."

Bill rubbed wet hands over his face and neck, and briefly through his hair, before drying off. He watched the blood-tinged soap bubbles burst and dissipate in the basin, and felt something deep inside him unclench a little more.

_Fare thee well, Mr. Twigg. I'm sure Old Nick has a real special place in his pits for your sort. If you bump into Hector down there, tell him Bootstrap says hello._

He was folding the rag when he heard the door open. Laying it to drape neatly on the rim of the washbasin, he waited until he heard it close again.

Then he found himself waiting longer still, and he smiled.

"You used to do that when you'd come into our room in the middle of the night, you know," he said fondly. "You'd just stand beside the bed, quiet as goose down, and wait for one of us to wake up. I never could figure out why you wouldn't just reach over and give one of us a shake."

Bill turned, his smile growing, and found Will hovering just inside the door, tight as salt-soaked rigging, eyes enormous.

"Aye, that's the face I'd see above me when I'd finally open my eyes." Bill leaned back, half sitting on the table, and gestured to the chair. "Come sit with me, Will. Please."

**TBC**


End file.
